VILLARD was named in honor of Henry Villard, who was born in Bavaria, April 11, 1835, and died at Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., November 12, 1900. He came to the United States in 1853, engaged in journalism and in the management of railroads, and was president of the Northern Pacific Railroad company in 1881-83, when the construction of its transcontinental line was completed. E. V. Smalley, in his history of this railroad, devoted two chapters (pp. 245-76) to the very remarkable career of Villard, up to the time of its publication in 1883. The city was incorporated as a village on October 4, 1883, and separated from the township on March 18, 1908; it had a station of the Northern Pacific Railroad in section 24 of Leven Township, and the post office was established in 1882.