Kingsburg was established as a railroad town, its site set by the Central Pacific Railroad when it completed the Valley Line in 1873. In the early 1870s, Swedish natives settled in a railroad town called “Kings River Switch”. Kingsburg started out as a flag stop on the Central Pacific Railroad called Kings River Switch. In 1874 Kingsburg was called Wheatville and had a post office, later that year they changed the name to Kingsbury. Two years after that it became Kingsburgh and in January 1894 took on its present spelling, “Kingsburg”, which was finally established as a town in 1908. By 1921, ninety-four percent of the population within a three-mile radius of Kingsburg was Swedish-American, giving the community the nickname of “Little Sweden”. To keep up with the town’s Swedish history most retail businesses are designed in Swedish architecture.

For much of the town’s history, the fields around Kingsburg were mostly grape vineyards which produce mainly raisins and table grapes; in 2002 a large surplus of raisins and grapes drove the price for these commodities down to an all-time low. Subsequently, farmers were forced to replant the fields with stone fruit, or (particularly on the west side of town) sell their land to developers to help cope with the rising population.