The name of Stevenston is derived from the name of Stephen Loccard. Around 1170 his father obtained a grant of land from Richard de Morville, the Lord of Cunninghame and Constable of Scotland and during the feudal era the land around Stevenston was owned by the Earls of Loudon and Glencairn. The Ruins of Glencairn’s castle at Kerlaw still stand in the town.

One of the earliest industries to be developed in Stevenston was coal mining. The coalfields in the town were developed by the Cunninghame family and the Warner family of the Ardeer estate. Robert Cunninghame built Saltcoats harbour towards the end of the 17^th century to be used for the export of coal to Ireland and in 1774 his son, Robert Reid Cunninghame, built the first industrial canal in Scotland to take coal from his coalfields at Auchenharvie to the harbour.Disaster struck on 2^nd August 1895 when the no. 4 mine at Auchenharvie was flooded and fourteen men were trapped. It took the rescue parties 2 days to reach the men but only 5 had survived. The mines at Auchenharvie were closed in 1915 but coal was still produced in Stevenston until 1926 when the last pit at Ardeer closed.

Another heavy industry which had an impact on Stevenston was the production of iron. In 1849 the Glengarnock Iron and Steel Company built an iron foundry at Stevenston shore which produced iron for eight years. Stevenston stone was also of great importance to the town and was exported to Ireland as well as being used to build many of the houses in the town. As well as heavy industry, cottage industries also provided a living for residents of the town. Chief among these cottage industries was weaving but jew’s harps were also produced at a small hamlet outside of the town called Pipersheugh.

The main industry which has been associated with Stevenston in the 20^th century has been the production of explosives. In 1871 Alfred Nobel came to the area and founded the British Dynamite Company which later became Nobel Explosives and was involved in the formation of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in 1926. Although the site in the Ardeer sandhills was the ideal location for the production of explosives, Nobel did not rate it as the ideal place to live. In a letter home to his brother he wrote:

"Picture to yourself everlasting bleak sand dunes with no buildings. Only rabbits find a little nourishment here; they eat a substance which quite unjustifiably goes by the name of grass. It is a sand desert where the wind blows, often howls, filling the ears with sand. Between us and America there is nothing but water, [a] sea whose mighty waves are always raging and foaming. Now you will have some idea of the place where I am living. Without work the place would be intolerable."

The Ardeer sandhills may not have been Nobel's idea of paradise but they undoubtedly contributed to his vast fortune which today funds the Nobel Foundation and the Nobel Prizes including the Nobel Peace Prize. The production of explosives in what was known locally as "The Factory" also brought prosperity to the area and at its peak in the 1940's nearly 13,000 people were employed at the site. ICI also produced nylon at the site when the Nylon Plant was built in 1966, becoming operational in 1969. The Nylon plant closed in 1981 and throughout the eighties the decline of the Ardeer site continued. Today only two or three hundred people are employed at Ardeer and the old gatehouse has been moved a hundred yards further into the site. There are plans to re-develop part of the site as a heritage site for the millenium.

In 1952, following two previous unsuccessful campaigns in 1904 and 1926, Stevenston was raised to burgh status and remained so until the introduction of regional and district councils in 1974. The burgh coat of arms consisted of a silver shield topped with a castle's ramparts. In the centre of the shield is  a black shakefork (shaped like the letter Y) which is taken from the Cunninghames' coat of arms and a black diamond, representing coal, rests between the prongs of the fork. To the left of the fork is shown a stick of dynamite surrounded by flame and to the right of the fork is a picture of a heart within a lock (Lockhart is a corruption of the name Loccard). Below the coat of arms is written the motto of the burgh "To spread her conquests farther", taken from Robert Burns's poem Bonnie Lesley about Lesley Baillie, the daughter of Robert Baillie of Mayville, Stevenston.

The local junior football team in Stevenston is Ardeer Thistle and although they are currently languishing in the Second Division of the Stagecoach Western League they have had glories in the past. During the 1924-25 season the most successfull Ardeer Thistle team won every junior competition in which they competed with the exception of the Scottish Cup. A former Ardeer Thistle player, Andy Auld, who played with the team in the twenties later emigrated to America and was a member of the United States soccer team which reached the semi final of the inaugural World Cup in 1930. During the 1959 season, Tommy Duffy scored 96 goals during the forty matches which Ardeer played, a record which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records to this day.