Saber-toothed tigers and wooly mammoths once roamed free in Fullerton. The Gabrielinos, Indians who were on Fullerton lands as long ago as 1,000 years, supplanted these prehistoric animals many years later. When George H. Fullerton made the decision to route the Santa Fe Railroad through the fledging townsite in 1887, he secured Fullerton's economic future. The right-of-way for the railroad traffic would spur the growth of the Valencia orange industry—started by a descendent of the famous "Johnny Appleseed"—as well as the production of oil wells that still pump to this day.