Califon took its original name, California, from early resident Jacob Neighbor, who prospered in the California gold rush of 1849 and, after returning, built a large sawmill on the South Branch of the Raritan River and a general store; local legend says the town became Califon when the full name would not fit on the station sign. The town later gained the only stone railroad station on the High Bridge Branch, replacing a small wooden station built in 1876 after residents persuaded the railroad in 1893 to construct a fieldstone station and promised to obtain and move stone from the nearby Vernoy quarry at their own expense. Califon's first station agent, William Apgar, sold tickets, handled freight, processed U.S. Mail, and served as postmaster, express agent, and telegraph operator, while two passenger trains made two round trips daily on the branch, carrying mail, newspapers, and magazines, and taking children to school in High Bridge. Although iron ore was the railroad's primary freight through Califon, the town's growth made it, by 1913, the station with the greatest number of businesses on the High Bridge Branch, including a peach basket factory, coal yards, gristmills, confectionary and tobacco stores, and a piano shop. Peach growing was a major local industry in the late 1800s, with nearly every nearby farm maintaining an orchard, peaches packed in baskets made in Califon and nearby Hoffman's, and by 1890 Hunterdon County containing an estimated two million peach trees that produced nearly one million baskets shipped by train to central New Jersey, New York City, and Pennsylvania. John Neighbor built one of Califon's earliest peach basket factories in 1885, and a 1901 newspaper advertised the Califon Basket factory's peach baskets at the state's lowest wholesale price of $2.00 per 100 baskets; when the factory closed in 1995, it was the last steam-powered basket factory on the East Coast. Milk was another important railroad commodity, and in 1903 E.C. Demarest moved his creamery from Middle Valley to Califon, with John Geist as manager; farmers' milk was cooled with ice, pasteurized, bottled, and often shipped in 40-quart cans to Jersey City and New York, where whole milk sold for 5¢ a quart and skimmed milk for 1¢, before the creamery later passed to B.R. Waldron's family for three generations and its site became the Califon Fire Department.