Alameda County
Biographies
ROBERT McKILLICAN
Conspicuous for the part he has taken in the upbuilding of Oakland and its neighboring cities, and for his influence in business and political circles, Robert McKillican may well be numbered among the most prominent and esteemed citizens of Alameda county. For more than thirty years he has resided in Oakland, and has ever faithfully performed his obligations as a man of public spirit and progressive views, and while serving as county sheriff was equally zealous in the discharge of his arduous and oftentimes hazardous duties.
A native of Canada, Mr. McKillican was born in Prescott, in the province of Ontario, in 1841. After leaving school he served an apprenticeship at the trade of carpenter and joiner in Van Leek Hill, Ontario. Coming to California in 1865, he sought work in San Francisco, and as a journeyman helped build the shot tower, the Jewish synagogue and other buildings. Subsequently becoming foreman of a construction company in the employ of the North Bloomfield works, he had charge of the erection of dams and flumes in the Nevada county cut, one of the dams which he built having been one hundred feet high, which was one of the highest, if not the very highest, in the state. In that capacity Mr. McKillican superintended the building of forty-four miles of dams and flumes. He subsequently worked in the Central Pacific car shops in Folsom for twelve months, and for a year was a brass pattern maker.
Locating in Oakland in 1872, Mr. McKillican worked in a planing mill for a year, and then, in 1873, formed a partnership with R. F. Simpson, becoming junior member of the firm of Simpson & McKillican. During the following twelve years this firm carried on an extensive business in contracting and building, and in addition to erecting many of the finest houses in Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley, built the Presbyterian Church in Berkeley; the Hervey, Nichols and Merritt blocks, and the postoffice building in Oakland; and erected numerous business blocks in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Stockton. In 1884 the partnership was dissolved, and Mr. McKillican has since continued business alone, and has met with characteristic success. He has filled contracts in San Francisco, building several large and costly business blocks, which stand as a monument to his industry and ability. He has likewise erected beautiful dwelling and business houses in Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley and adjoining cities, at times employing as many as one hundred and ten men in the filling of important contracts. His own home, at No. 560 Twenty-fifth street, he built soon after coming to this city. In politics Mr. McKillican is a sound Democrat, and in 1892 was elected sheriff of Alameda county, receiving a majority of two thousand votes in a Republican stronghold. Closing up his business as soon as possible after his election, Mr. McKillican devoted his entire time to his duties as sheriff, and proved himself one of the most able and efficient officers the county ever had. During his term of service the great strike of the Southern Pacific Railway Company's employees occurred and lasted thirty days. On the twenty-first day of the strike Sheriff McKillican called out seventeen hundred of United States troops, and through his untiring efforts the troubles were settled. Brave and unflinching, he never faltered in the path of duty. On one occasion while courageously making his way through a crowd craving for excitement, one of the strikers, referring to the sheriff, cried: “Take him out of his wagon.” Deliberately driving into the midst of the men, Mr. McKillican ordered one of the strikers to hold his horse, and he arrested and carried to jail the man who had done the shouting, his control over the infuriated crowd being so strong that no man dared disobey his orders. Few cities in our great Union can boast of men of more heroic valor than he. Mr. McKillican has been an extensive traveler, visiting the principal cities and states in our country and in Alaska.
Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. McKillican, Lester Ross and Lena. Lester Ross McKillican, formerly a clerk for Judge Green, served in the Spanish-American war, and is now an officer in the San Quentin State's Prison.
Transcribed 12-8-16 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1410-1411. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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