Town Discovers It Has Been Misspelling Its Own Name for 140 Years

The 2,400 residents of Pittsville, Wisconsin, learned this week that their town has been misspelling its own name since 1886, when the original township charter was filed with the county clerk's office containing a transcription error that removed a 'T' from the intended name, Pitstville. 'The town was supposed to be named after founder Elijah Pitts,' said local historian and genealogist Dorothy Record, who discovered the error while reviewing original charter documents at the county archives. 'Pitstville. With a T before the V. The clerk who filed the paperwork apparently had poor handwriting and the T was lost. Nobody has questioned it in 140 years.' The discovery has thrown the community into an unexpected identity crisis. Town council president Harold Ledger convened an emergency meeting to discuss whether to correct the name or maintain the misspelling that has defined the town for nearly a century and a half. 'We're Pittsville,' said lifelong resident Marion Sign. 'I was born here. My parents were born here. We've been Pittsville my whole life. You can't just add a letter to a town after 140 years. That's not how towns work.' 'But we're not actually Pittsville,' countered Dorothy Record. 'We're a typo. The town's legal name is a clerical error. We've been living in a mistake.' The U.S. Board on Geographic Names confirmed that the official designation follows whatever appears in the original charter, meaning the town's legal name has technically always been Pittsville — the misspelled version — because that is what was recorded. 'The original error is the official name,' said a board representative. 'We don't correct historical documents. The mistake is the truth now.' The town council has tabled the discussion until next quarter. A local sign company has offered to update all municipal signage to 'Pitstville' at cost, an offer the council declined on the grounds that 'we'd have to change the stationery too, and we just ordered 5,000 envelopes.'