Arthur Glenn McKee

Arthur Glenn McKee (January 12, 1871 – February 19, 1956) was an American engineer who founded Arthur G. McKee & Co., a Cleveland-based construction firm. With Waldo Sexton, McKee also co-founded the McKee Jungle Gardens in 1929.

Early life and education McKee was born on January 12, 1871, in State College, Pennsylvania. He attended the Pennsylvania State College, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1891 and, later, a Master of Science in mechanical engineering. In 1906, he was joined by two partners, electrical engineer Robert E. Baker and construction engineer Donald Herr. McKee stepped down as president in 1946 and served afterwards as chairman of the company's advisory committee. The two engaged landscape architect William Lyman Phillips, who had earlier designed Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and Bok Tower Gardens, to design the site's streams, ponds, trails and specimen plantings, and consulted the plant explorer David Fairchild on horticultural matters. The attraction opened to the public in 1932 as McKee Jungle Gardens. The remaining 18-acre core was preserved by the Indian River Land Trust in 1995 and reopened in 2001 as the McKee Botanical Garden. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 7, 1998, under its original name.

Personal life McKee married Marion Fairbanks Deane on April 20, 1899. They had two daughters, Mary Katherine and Marion Glenn. After his first wife's death on June 4, 1948, he married Bennetta Heath Alexander, who survived him.