Photos from the Vault

Sandercock Transfer & Storage

Fred Sandercock was part of the mounted party who escorted President William McKinley on his visit to San Luis Obispo.

Looking back on names mentioned in the columns of the Tribune and Telegram newspapers the name Sandercock appears early and often. Before the Secret Service assumed lead responsibility for presidential security local volunteers with good reputations were pressed into service. The Sandercock family volunteered to protect two presidents.  In addition the company’s express wagon was sent around town to pick up flowers from local gardens to decorate the Hotel Ramona for the presidential visit.
Months after his visit here security was not good and President McKinley was murdered in New York state. The president who had travelled more than any other to that point was shot by an anarchist.  The Sandercock company office on Higuera Street next to the old city hall was draped with a mourning banner inscribed “We will never look on his like again.”
A few years later Norman Sandercock was a guard at the railroad station for President Theodore Roosevelt on his visit to the county.
William Sandercock founded the freight transportation and road building business in 1872. The enterprise is the oldest family owned business in the county. The Tribune is an older institution but has undergone many ownership changes since it was founded a scant three years earlier in 1869. The county was rural and isolated, decades before the railroad or Cal Poly came to San Luis Obispo. The most economical way to ship products in or out was by wagon to Port Harford.
In a profile published in The Tribune on March 1, 2006 the Sandercock Transfer Co. provided this biographical sketch:

History: Founded in 1872, Sandercock Transfer Co. boasts it is the oldest family-owned business in San Luis Obispo County. Company founder William Sandercock saw opportunity in the county and quickly expanded his San Luis Obispo-based business, transporting freight between the port at Avila, the city’s train station and outlying development areas. Mule teams gave way to motor trucks. In 1933 the founder’s son, Norman, took over the business, aided by his own son, Warren, who in 1952 would lead the family business until his death in 1973.
Today: Leadership has passed to the family’s fourth generation. General manager Ken Thoming is married to Warren Sandercock’s daughter, Candace, who also assists in overseeing the business.
Clients: Throughout the years the company has hauled supplies up the Cuesta Grade during Southern Pacific Railroad’s expansion into San Luis Obispo and in the 1930s as work progressed on William Randolph Hearst’s La Cuesta Encantada.

In addition to supporting the Southern Pacific’s railroad building the company built the first roads for Cal Poly. Sometimes work require a voyage as seen below.

San Luis Obispo Tribune for the week of March 17, 1897
Compiled by Wilmar Tognazzini

As was announced a week ago, Mr. Wm. Sandercock of this city, has secured the contract for building a grand scenic driveway on Santa Catalina island from Avalon to Eel Rock.
The road is to be twelve feet wide, built on a ten percent grade and will be eleven miles in length. The first three miles of the road is the most difficult to make as it is over a mountain grade and very rough.
It is estimated that it will take at least five month’s time to finish the work. When completed it will make a grand drive for the visitors.
Santa Catalina island is owned by the Bannings of Los Angeles. The island is famous as a summer resort, many people from all over the world going there to enjoy a few weeks when visiting in this state.
There has never been any place where tourists could drive and the Bannings have at last decided to have a road built for the benefit of their guests.
This morning ten men will be sent from this city to San Pedro where they will be joined by another crew from Chino, and all will take passage for Santa Catalina island Thursday morning where they will begin their labors in the afternoon of the same day.
A number of wagons and scrapers will be shipped at the same time. A band of work horses will be driven to Los Angeles by Jerome Brumley and others and will be taken to the island at once.
Mr. Sandercock will ship another bunch of horses from his ranch at Chino.
The building of the road will involve an expenditure of $15,000 to $25,000, and there is no doubt but what the road will be well made as Mr. Sandercock is noted as a road builder having done a great deal of that kind of work when the Southern Pacific railroad was built from Santa Margarita to this city.
Mr. Sandercock intends to leave for the island within a few weeks, and intends to personally superintend the work on the new road.

 October 2, 1915 ad from the pages of the San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram.

Charter members of the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce are:
* Cal Poly
* Crystal Springs Water
* Charles H. Johnson family (real estate)
* Maino Construction
* Marshalls Jewelers
* Morris & Garritano
* PG&E
* Polin family (real estate)
* Sandercock Transfer & Storage
* The Tribune
* Union Oil