 A French trading post may have operated at the current site of Delaplaine prior to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.The name is French for "of the plain," and was written as three words (De La Plaine) for many years.When the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway constructed a line through the area in the 1870s, a stop known as "Grey's Station" was established, named for one of the few female postmasters in the state at the time, Lizzie Grey.