It was a division point for the Southern Pacific Railroad, where refueling and crew changes on its main transcontinental route took place.

A devastating flood in June 1965 killed 26 people and washed away homes and businesses near the usually dry Sanderson Creek.

[4] An illustrated tour brochure guides visitors past 50 historic sites,[5] including several notable buildings remaining from the town's more prosperous era.

Facing the courthouse square is the little-changed 1931 Art Deco-style Sanderson High School, designed by Ralph W. Cameron, one of San Antonio's leading architects of the period.

Nearby is a Classical Revival structure built as a Masonic Lodge, but used for many years now as a private residence.

Kerrs Mercantile on U.S. Route 90 was the leading retailer in these parts for decades; now under new ownership, the establishment is called the Z bar trading company known for hardware, household goods and gift items.

[6] Two tornadoes struck Sanderson on June 2, 2024, significantly damaging or destroying several homes and injuring 12 people.

[7] According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 4.2 square miles (10.9 km2), all land.

Kenn Norris, the county commissioner, stated that the San Angelo Standard-Times was previously distributed in the community.

[6] Sanderson is the location of the trailer park where Llewellyn Moss lives in the 2005 Cormac McCarthy novel and 2007 Coen Brothers film No Country for Old Men.

[26] It is also the destination of the truckload of down-on-their-luck Mexicans looking for work in McCarthy's third Border Trilogy book Cities of the Plain (1998).