Sacramento County

Biographies

JEROME STARKEY

JEROME STARKEY.--A live-wire in the field of California transportation is Jerome Starkey, the efficient and accommodating president of the Country Movers’ Exchange Bureau at Sacramento. He was born in San Joaquin County, on May 6, 1883, the son of George Washington and Amanda (Lawson) Starkey, who came here in 1880 and at once engaged in farming near San Ramon. These worthy people did their full part in helping to cope with pioneer conditions and to develop the resources of the district in which they had settled. Both are still living.

Jerome Starkey attended the excellent California schools, and meanwhile made himself very useful around the home place. He also became a newsboy in the city of Sacramento, and later took up locomotive firing for the Southern Pacific Company, which he followed faithfully for five years. His exceptional ability was early recognized, and after a thorough apprenticeship he was promoted to be a locomotive engineer, and followed that line of work with equal fidelity for six years.

After that Mr. Starkey took up cattle-raising, in Siskiyou County. On selling out his interests he removed to Sacramento and entered the local transportation field, responding to the need of the hour for more and better transfer facilities. He already had experience in this line; and possessing good powers of observation, he foresaw in it a promising field of endeavor, that must prove increasingly remunerative with the settling and expansion of town and county. The soundness of his judgment has been demonstrated in the growth of his business; and he now keeps several trucks and men busily engaged exclusively in the transfer of household furnishings and in long-distance hauling. His vans are always ready to “go anywhere,” and also ready at all hours of the day and night for special emergencies. He has a roomy, well-built and very safe storage warehouse under construction to supplement the one already in use, located at Sixth and Seventh and R and S Streets in Sacramento. The main office, from which all business is transacted, is located at 1010 Sixth Street.

In December, 1922, Mr. Starkey introduced an innovation in the means of transporting household goods by the building of special box-car vans, adequately padded on ends, sides and roof, and placed on trailers set low to the ground, so that they can be loaded with dispatch, without having to lift the heavy goods from curb to the high wagon bed of the usual furniture truck. These vans can be loaded either from the end or from the side, doors opening so that one van can be stopped opposite another; or, when space in the street is narrow, the van can be loaded standing with its side against the curb. These vans are transported by a Fordson tractor, an engineer or chauffeur being employed, who is always on call by telephone from the main office. Two men accompany each van to load and unload as required. The van is hauled to the place where ordered and is then uncoupled, automatic couplers being used on all vehicles, and then the driver goes about other business until called to take the loaded van to the place where it is to be unloaded. Here he again uncouples and goes about other business. Since introducing these vans in Sacramento, Mr. Starkey has reduced the cost of moving goods over 30 per cent, while his increase in business amounted to over 400 per cent in the first two months of operating. These vans were constructed under the personal direction of Mr. Starkey, in his own warehouse, and letters of patent have been applied for on this particular style of vehicle. The cost of moving has been reduced to a science, and this reduction has been passed along to the customer in lower rates for services rendered.

Mr. Starkey’s experience as a locomotive engineer has been of inestimable value to him in his mechanical work. He is now working on a detachable drive-shaft, making connection at drive-worm of truck and connecting with front wheels of trailer, equipped with differential mechanism the same as an ordinary motor truck, to utilize the power developed by the motor, and in this more efficient manner making a four-wheel drive unit out of the truck and trailer, thus creating economies incidental thereto, carefully worked out by the inventor. This particular piece of mechanism seems destined to revolutionize truck transportation, and has already resulted in very considerable economies.

Mr. Starkey is deeply interested in the development of Sacramento County, and in the industrial growth of his home city. In national political affairs he endorses the platforms of the Republican party, which he believes make for commercial and industrial prosperity.

Mr. Starkey was married in Dunsmuir, on December 23, 1903, to Miss Marie Clausnitzer, of that city; and that union has been blessed with the birth of one child, a daughter named Verna, a graduate from the Sacramento high school and now a student at Heald’s Business College. Mr. Starkey belongs to the Knights of Pythias Lodge. He was one of five to organize the Sacramento Draymen’s Association, now Coastwide in its operations, and was one of the first directors. He is public-spirited in all things, and he has made a name and a place for himself through his own efforts.

Transcribed by Vicky Walker, 3/1/2007.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 411-412. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.