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In July 1831, the Warrington and Newton railway was opened, less than 6 months after the Liverpool and Mancheser railway began service. A station was built at the junction of the two railways, a mile west of the town of Newton in Makerfield, now Newton-le-Willows and was given the name Newton Junction. A locomotive and wagon works was built just west of the station and a model town was constructed for its workers. In 1837, the name of the station was changed to Earlestown.

In 1862 locomotive building was concentrated in Crewe, while Earlestown became the major wagon works. By 1900 it was producing 4,000 new wagons, with 13,000 major repairs, along with 200 new horse-drawn vehicles. At amalgamation into the LMS, mass production methods were introduced. The works provided all of the railway's needs for ironwork, and continued into the first half of the twentieth century. At the 1963 rationalisation of British Railways, Earlestown was closed, and the work transferred to Horwich.

Earlestown owes its location - indeed its existence - to early transport links such as the nearby Sankey Canal and the Liverpool to Manchester railway. Other industries followed and significant employers in the town included the Sankey Sugar works and the Simon Vickers Engineering works. Additionally, the Lyme and Wood pits - located in neighbouring Haydock - at either end of what is now the "slag heaps" - employed hundreds of men between them. The sugar works closed some years ago (parts of the factory remain, including the warehouse) Simon Vickers remains (trading under a different name) but employing a fraction of the workforce of times gone by.

Earlestown is named after Hardman Earle (11 July 1792 - 25 January 1877) who was the Chairman of the London and North Western Railway.