Winfred J. Sanborn

Winfred Joseph Sanborn (December 2, 1869 – 1947) was on the Los Angeles City Council under an at-large election system from 1919 until a new city charter was adopted in 1925, when representation was changed to a fifteen-district system. Sanborn served the new Ninth District from 1925 until 1931, and then, when Councilman Howard E. Dorsey was killed in a motor accident in 1937, he was appointed to serve two more years.

Sanborn, the second son of Alfred Hines Sanborn and Mary Lavinia Sawyer, was born December 2, 1869, near Windsor, Missouri. In 1884 he moved with his family to Los Angeles. In 1894 he married Mary "Mamie" Myrtella Willey (1871–1966), a native of that city. The couple settled near his parents in Boyle Heights and had two children, Lynn Durrell Sanborn and Olive May Sanborn Burris.

Sanborn worked for the U. S. Postal Service from 1888 until 1910, when he joined Pierce Brothers undertakers as bookkeeper, credit manager and part owner.

He and his family were pioneers in the resort community of Camp Baldy, later Mount Baldy Village, in the San Gabriel Mountains. The Sanborns were camping there as early as 1897. A small stone cabin they built in 1910 still stands as the oldest structure in town. In 1912 Sanborn constructed a larger cabin, which stood until the 1970s, when it was removed to expand the ranger station. The station is situated on Sanborn Avenue.

Sanborn, a Republican, belonged to the Maccabees, the Elks Club and the Masons. He was on the board of governors of the Whittier Boulevard YMCA.

Sanborn's motive in running for city council in 1919 was to improve transportation from East Los Angeles to downtown, which required building new crossings of the Los Angeles River and the adjacent railroad tracks. The only candidate from the Boyle Heights area, he placed third of seventeen in the race, with nine elected. Council President Boyle Workman appointed him chairman of the Public Safety Committee and member of the Public Health and Sanitation and Public Utilities committees. Sanborn later also served on the Public Works and the Efficiency and Supply committees.

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