EAST AURORA, N.Y. — A name is more than just a label—it’s a piece of a community’s identity. But sometimes, the story behind that name is anything but simple. Take the village of East Aurora, for example. Why “East” Aurora when there’s no West Aurora?
According to local author and historian Robert Goller, the answer traces back to something surprisingly ordinary: the post office. He tells the story and many others about East Aurora in his book “Who Put The East in East Aurora?”
In the early 1800s, the area we now know as East Aurora was part of the Town of Willink. In 1818, Willink was dissolved and split into the towns of Aurora, Holland, and Wales. Despite that change, the Willink post office remained in operation, and the western portion of the area continued to be known as the Village of Willink…