Mizil was mentioned in 1529, in an official document at Brașov. It was first mentioned as "Eșteu" in 1585, and as "Istau" in 1591, after its stream. Around the turn of the 18th century, Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu owned the village, building houses at the nearby Corbeanca Dealul Dumbăvii vineyard and establishing an annual fair in Mizil that would become renowned. It was during the 18th century that a mail coach station for changing horses opened in the village. Merchants began to set up shop, their business augmented by the location between two larger towns; coachmen, wheelwrights, woodcutters and watchmen also found work. In the Ottoman Turkish language of Wallachia's rulers, the station was known as a "menzil". The "n" dropped out through syncope and the "i" became an "e"; given that activity and transactions that took place around it, the resulting name came to be used for the village as a whole and to replace its old name. The first church was built in 1790, and Mizil was declared a town in 1830.