Central Pacific Locomotive
Acton, California

Workers are off-loading railroad ties from Central Pacific Engine No. 210 near Acton in this mid-1870s photograph. After completing the first transcontinental rail line in May of 1869, the "Big Four" of the Central Pacific -- Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Huntington and Hopkins -- consolidated their interests with San Francisco railroad tycoons Henry Mayo Newhall, Peter Donahue and Charles Mayne and formed the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Southern Pacific completed the first north-south line from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a ceremony at Lang Station, a few miles south of Acton, on September 5, 1876.

Acton was probably named by H.M. Newhall for a town near his Saugus, Massachusetts birthplace and was once considered as a possible location for the California State Capitol.