The story of the pioneer drayage firm of W.H. Parrish Company, in Oakland, California, began in 1868. William Henry Parrish, my great grandfather, emigrated from Illinois, after the Civil War, arriving in Oakland. There he began work as a “sticker” at a lumber mill. W.H. Parrish Company came in to being eight years later with his purchase of the veteran cartage company of James Henneberry. At this time all work was done with horses and heavy low-bed dray wagons.
My grandfather, William Edward Parrish, entered into the business in 1900, working for his father until the latter’s death in 1909. Borrowing the necessary capital from his brothers and other family relations, the company was expanded and modernized with the introduction of the first motor trucks sometime around 1920.
State-wide long hauls were accomplished through the years with a rapidly growing fleet of Doane, Fageol and Autocar trucks, all ranging from three to ten ton capacity. Local runs were given to Chevrolet one and a half tone trucks and the above as well. Surviving a disastrous company warehouse fire in 1931, the red and grey W.H.Parrish Co. trucks were a common sight in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, Northern California and Nevada.
For many years, the then fledgling Pacific Gas and Electric Company was a major client, providing routine hauls of five, ten and twenty-five ton transformers to areas of the state that were rapidly being electrified. A lo-boy trailer pulled by an Autocar tractor handled the larger assignments. The company closed its doors on 1940, due to the ill health of my grandfather.
My father, Wilfred P. Parrish and my uncle, Harry L. Parrish, worked for their father from 1929 until the end. They recounted that the hardest and most memorable haul began late in the afternoon of Saturday, December 1, 1934. A Pacific storm had been raging for three days leaving slick city streets, mud crusted country roads and snow, sleet and ice in the mountainous Sierras. My grandfather received word that the mountain mining camp of Allegheny, California, was without power and light. The PG+E wanted to send four 10 ton transformers along with a ton of oil there.
By nightfall, five trucks were loaded and on their way. The three Autocars and two Doanes made fairly good time until the higher elevations were reached. The Autocars and one Doane, loaded with transformers took the road through Camptonville. The other Doane, driven by my uncle and loaded with drums of oil, took the steeper, faster, more direct, “ridge route.”
Even when dry, the narrow roads winding over and through the mountains and over light wooden bridges would have been tricky. Now they were perilous for the passage of an individual load consisting of a ten ton transformer and a ton of oil. Blanketed with several feet of frozen snow and with fresh snow falling steadily, the little convoy was confronted with a task that required all of the ability and skill of the crew if they were to deliver their load. Deliver they did! After eight days of shoveling snow, cutting brush to cover boggy roads, removing boulders brought down by the storm, sliding and literally lifting the trucks around short curves and over pitches with jacks, a winch and blocks and tackles, the transformers and oil were safely put down at the grateful mining camp.
Though it has been many years since the W.H. Parrish Co. trucks have been seen on the roads of California, they played a small part in the modern development of the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California’s transportation history.
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