Luther French became Sutton's first permanent settler when he arrived in 1870 and lived with his seven children in a dugout near School Creek, where a concealed tunnel offered protection in case of Indian attack, though the family was apparently never bothered. In 1871 his homestead was laid out as a townsite and named for Sutton, Massachusetts. Soon after its founding, the town entered a disagreement with the Burlington and Missouri Railroad over a depot; Sutton offered land for railroad facilities, but because the title to the land was not clear, the railroad placed its depot about four miles away and established a townsite there. By 1873 the railroad chose to relocate the depot in Sutton. The area then suffered severely from the grasshopper plague of 1874, and Sutton became a distribution center for federal, state, and private aid that helped settlers endure the hardships of the following winter.