page_title: Alexander Howison Murray Jr.
section_title: Politics
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Howison Murray Jr. / Career / Politics
caption_attribution_description: own work.
context_page_description: Alexander Howison "Sandy" Murray Jr., was a two-time mayor of Placerville, California and three-time president of the county's chamber of commerce, who championed regional development, including the building of U.S. Route 50 in California and was a regular page-one name in the Placerville Mountain Democrat.
context_section_description: In 1942, Murray became mayor of Placerville for the first time.  In April 1946, Murray ran un-opposed for Placerville City Council. In April 1948, he was re-elected to city council.  From 1950 to 1952, he served a second term as mayor of Placerville. In 1976, he ran and won a council seat again.  Later that year, Murray and fellow councilmen Andy Anderson and Mark Tetrault came under fire from the mayor and other councilmen for leading a 3–2 vote in an amendment to reduce appointive powers of the city manager.  Murray was among several councilors recalled in March 1977.
  In the late 1940s, Murray led town officials in a successfully campaign to have US 50 constructed through Placerville, which the State of California completed in 1953. "To help draw attention to the highway and promote businesses along it, he helped organize the first "Forty-Niner" Festival and Wagon Train (or Wagon Caravan) event in 1949," which he supported annually as late as 1962 when he served as "chairman for the annual Highway 50 Snow Ball." He continued to support the highway by serving on the board of the National Highway 50 federation with California Senator Swift Berry as chairman.
  In 1975, Murray took out papers to run again for city council.  In the late 1980s, Murray was still weighing in on town affairs.  In a letter to the editor of the Mountain Democrat dated May 19, 1986, he praised El Dorado County Supervisor Bob Dorr as well as the Mountain Democrat itself over the issue of "toxic polluters." 
  In another letter dated June 8, 1987, he called on fellow citizens to rally support for a South Fork American River (SOFAR) project.  (The South Fork American River is a major tributary of the American River in El Dorado County, California, that drains a watershed on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada east of Sacramento. The river begins in pristine Desolation Wilderness and flows through the Sierra Nevada foothills. The river at Coloma was the site of James Marshall's discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848, which started the California Gold Rush.)
caption: Sign at west end of US 50 with distances to Placerville, South Lake Tahoe, all the way to Ocean City, Maryland–Murray supported US Route 50's development near Placerville
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