The first white settler is believed to have arrived in Uasin Gishu soon after 1900. A major trek of Afrikaans-speaking South Africans arrived in 1908 and by 1910 Uasin Gishu had begun to fill up with British settlers.

The governor decided to establish an administrative centre in the area 1912 and thus the Post Office was renamed from “64” to a new official town name: “Eldoret” . The origin of the name Eldoret is the Maasai word “eldore” meaning stony river –with reference to the river-bed of the nearby Sosiani.  Becoming an administrative centre caused an enormous increase in trade within the prospective city. A bank and several shops were built. This November 14th 1912, Eldoret, with an acreage of 2,770 was officially proclaimed a township.

Difficulty was experienced in providing township services to keep pace with the rapid commercial development; responsibility for town services lay with the District commissioner, helped by a Township commitee, which had no legal authority and no way of collecting funds. This led to elevation of the town to status of a Municipal board in April 1929.

Eldoret was one of the first towns in Kenya to elect an African Mayor, Councillor A. N. Oloo who took office on 2nd September 1963. Eldoret’s Oloo street was named after him

The Uasin Gishu County is the creation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and successor of the defunct City Council of Uasin Gishu. It operates under the auspices of the Cities and Urban Areas Act, The Devolved Governments Act and a host of other Acts. Its name comes from the Illwuasin-kishu Maasai clan. The land was the grazing area of the clan. They surrendered the land to the colonial government in the Anglo-Maasai agreement of 1911, and were subsequently pushed towards Trans Mara. The plateau that they once occupied was then registered in its Anglicised version, Uasin Gishu