The Talley family has been involved with trucking for over 60 years. Their company, Talley Transportation out of Madera, California, has been around since 1946.
O.W. Talley was eighteen when he married his sixteen-year-old sweetheart Elaine. Back then, they lived in Maricopa, California, just outside Bakersfield. O.W. went off to fight in WWII and served in Germany in the Motorpool – which is the Army’s term for trucking. After he got back, Talley Transportation was started on April 1, 1946 as a livestock hauling operation serving California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico and Texas. In 1947, O.W. and Elaine packed up all their belongings in their travel trailer and moved to Madera. One year later, their son Ken was born. Still living in that tiny trailer, Ken’s crib was merely a pulled-out drawer lined with blankets. Talk about humble beginnings.
The Talley color scheme (dark blue, yellow and red) was adopted right from the start with the first truck. O.W. bought a red 1939 KW with a 1946 front end from “Uncle Don” Keith in Corcoran, CA and a dark blue and yellow truck rack and trailer from an outfit in Arizona. Figuring it would be easier, quicker and cheaper to paint the truck’s cab instead of the entire rack and trailer, they kept the dark blue and yellow scheme and, 60 years later, not much has changed.
The truck of choice for Ken’s dad was always a Kenworth, but over the years he had other makes as well. Because trucks were hard to come by after World War II, Talley’s second truck was a Sterling and the third was a 1941 Peterbilt with an HRS 225 Cummins engine (the company still has that old Cummins engine and is planning on rebuilding it in the near future). O.W. had a buddy who sold GMC trucks and another buddy who sold Utility trailers, so, from time to time, one of these trucks or trailers would join the fleet.
At fifteen and a half years old, Ken Talley had his mom take him to get his Learner’s Permit. It was a Friday afternoon, and later that same night, Ken found himself running a team with a man named Martin Rogers to Oregon to pick up a load of cattle. Ken did this for about six months and then got his license. At sixteen, Ken began hauling oil out of Bakersfield for his dad. O.W. had started a tanker and oil spreading operation in 1956 and was doing very well. At that time, oil was the highest-rated commodity besides explosives and the hours and working conditions were much more favorable than hauling livestock. Ken went to college for a short time but flunked out. He has been working in the family business ever since.
As time passed and Ken got more involved with the business, he began to slowly take it over from his father in the late 1960s. As most of the beef industry left California and moved to the Midwest in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Talley phased out the livestock operation, opting instead to focus on hauling oil and other construction-related products. San Joaquin Sand & Gravel was started as an open pit mining operation in Fresno and ran for 21 years along the San Joaquin River until they ran out of sand and gravel. At that time, they sold off everything except for the crushing equipment, and today San Joaquin Sand & Gravel is a fast-growing and successful aggregate production and sales company, dealing with products such as base rock, crushed rock, sand, fill dirt and topsoil.