Acton Presbyterian Church: Congregation of the Chaparral

The Acton Community Presbyterian Church traces its roots to the late eighteen eighties, when a small group gathered in Acton, establishing a worshipping community in the rugged high desert northeast of Los Angeles.

Acton sits at about twenty-seven hundred feet in the Sierra Pelona foothills, where the Antelope Valley meets the Santa Clara River watershed. In the eighteen eighties it was a mining and ranching outpost, and its early settlers included prospectors drawn to the gold and silver deposits in the surrounding hills. A church in that landscape meant more than Sunday services. It was often the only formal gathering place, the anchor of civic life in a community where the nearest town of any size was a hard day's ride away. The congregation has persisted for well over a century in that same high-desert tradition.