Templeton
History
Templeton is located within the former Rancho Paso de Robles Mexican land grant and was founded in 1886 when Chauncey Hatch Phillips of the West Coast Land Company sent R.R. Harris to survey 160 acres (0.65 km2) set aside for a town to exist south of Paso Robles as part of the company’s larger purchase of 63,000 acres (250 km2). These 160 acres were to be laid out in business and residential lots with 5–12 acre parcels, with the town to be named “Crocker” after a Vice President of the Southern Pacific Railroad, Charles F. Crocker; however, Crocker instead chose to name the town “Templeton,” after his two-year-old son, Charles Templeton Crocker.
The town was briefly the end of the line for passengers travelling south via the Southern Pacific Railroad from northern California; passengers disembarked at Templeton and were then carried by stagecoach south to San Luis Obispo. In 1889, the railroad was continued 14 miles (23 km) south to Santa Margarita and the town was reclassified to a flag stop. Currently, the railroad stops in nearby Paso Robles before continuing on, and Templeton is classified as a bypass.
In 1898, a fire destroyed most of the original wooden buildings of the business district along Main Street, prompting this section of the town to be rebuilt with brick, although on a somewhat smaller scale than before
