According to existing records those who went to Kutay after the tribal war in Bunga were all equipped with palo, a sort of club for fighting or self-protection.

Believers in superstition and the supernatural ascribe the origin of the Palo name to the town's experience during pre-Spanish time often being visited by typhoons every eight (walo) days.

The first settlers of Palo were the tribes Panganuron, Kadampog, Manlangit, Kamagung, Kawaring, Kabalhin, Kumagang Maglain, Bilyo and Dilyo.

The settlers in Kutay moved to Bangon river and there started the first barrio, Barangay de Palo, in 1521.

Cristobal Jimenez and Francisco Encinas left Dulag traversing to Palo along the eastern coasts They were accompanied by principales Don Alonso Ambuyao and four others.

In his rounds of the villages, he noticed that there were many sick of which the greater the number succumbed to diseases for lack of medical attention.

At that time, medical service was very expensive and available only to families of means for they alone could afford to pay work animals, slaves, or the equivalent of the patient's ransom.

The metropolitan cathedral of the archdiocese, located right across Palo's municipal hall, was used as a hospital for wounded Filipino and American forces.

[10] On November 8, 2013, Palo was severely struck by Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), which destroyed a large portion of Eastern Visayas and killed a number of residents in the town.

He also blessed the Pope Francis Center for the Poor and met with priests, seminarians, other religious figures, and surviving victims of the typhoon at the Palo Cathedral before leaving Leyte.

[12] The municipality is located in the north-eastern part of the province of Leyte, 8 miles from the capital city of Tacloban.

Palo is the seat of the ecclesiastical province, the Archdiocese, where the Roman Catholic archbishop resides in Bukid Tabor.

Meanwhile, Palo is also a seedbed of vocations to the priesthood with the Sacred Heart Seminary and the St. John the Evangelist School of Theology.