 A stopover known as Upton Station was established just beyond the railroad's Little Tennessee River crossing.Three years later, an area doctor named Walter Kennedy applied for a post office for Upton Station.When the postal service informed him that Upton Station had been taken, Kennedy chose the name "Vonore", a combination of the German word "von" (meaning "of") and the English word "ore", as Kennedy believed the town would become a mining town.