One of the oldest communities in the Delta was established as a railroad town so that businessmen could avoid paying taxes as they shipped freight and passengers from the Bay Area to Sacramento and on to the Gold Rush region.  A ten-mile line was built from the Brighton Station on the Sacramento Valley Railroad to a “free port” which became the town of Freeport.

In the late 1800s, the Freeport-Clarksburg region was one of three major truck-farming areas.  The truck-gardens of Freeport-Clarksburg were operated by Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, French, German, and domestic migrants.  Over time, Southern Europeans became the primary operators of small farms.