Kempton Park lies on what was two Boer farms in the South African Republic (ZAR). The first farm was "Zuurfontein No 369" with the title deed issued to Johannes Stephanus Marais on 25 October 1859 and surveyed to be 3000 morgen on 12 December 1859. The second farm northwest of the first was registered to Cornelius Johannes Beukes in March 1865 and was called "Rietfontein 32 IR". After the discovery of gold in Johannesburg, 22 km southeast of the farms in 1886, a railway connecting Pretoria to Vereeniging and to the Cape line was constructed in the early 1890s. The railway line did not go through Johannesburg, but passed to the east through the two farms with a station called "Zuurfontein". That station would be linked by a side-rail to the "Zuid-Afrikaansche Fabrieken voor Ontplofbare Stoffen", a dynamite factory a few kilometres north west.