AA Van Voorhies & Co

According to his great great granddaughter, AA Van Voorhies arrived in California in 1853, working for the J. Madison saddlery in Sacramento for near two years before striking out on his own in the booming nearby gold rush town of Placerville. He subsequently returned to Sacramento to partner with R Stone in 1869 eventually buying him out in 1881. As a direct result of the California Gold Rush, Sacramento became a major commercial center and distribution point for Northern California, serving as the terminus for the Pony Express and the First Transcontinental Railroad. Van Voorhies rated along with John T Stoll and Tom Hildreth as one of the premier 19th century saddleries in Sacramento, rivaling the best that the bay area’s L D Stone, Main and Winchester, Visalia, and F M Stern had to offer -- especially in their comprehensive inventory of fancy mounted California bits and spurs. So fierce was the competition between the Sacramento and San Francisco saddleries that Van Voorhies boasted in print “We will duplicate any bit and spur shown in any catalogue of any San Francisco house and make as low a price.” As Sacramento grew, so did Van Voorhies, publishing an oversized, 310-page catalog in 1905 and competing effectively with newcomers Gus Goldberg and Walsh Richardson. Van Voorhies took in Phinney as a partner some time after 1905, ultimately shortening the name to the “Vanco” Line in the late 1920s. The company permanently closed in the late 1980s.

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