Daniel Michael McGarry

Daniel Michael McGarry (January 20, 1842 – July 4, 1903) was a Chicago, Illinois, coal dealer and in the later part of his life a civic leader and businessman in Los Angeles, California, where he was a member of the Los Angeles City Council.

Biography

McGarry was born on January 20, 1842, in Loughgiel, County Antrim, Ireland, and came to the United States in 1865 settling at first in Cleveland, Ohio, where, with a cousin, he "engaged in the fuel business." (or Annie) and Patrick J.

McGarry died on July 4, 1903, in his Santa Monica, California, summer home. He had been suffering from an affection of the heart. It was noted that McGarry's death came just "a few hours" after he had read of the impending death of his "intimate friend and associate," fellow civic leader John F. Francis. The newspaper reported that:

when the funeral approached the Sisters' Orphanage on Boyle Heights[, the] bell was tolled and the girls stood with bowed heads and clasped hands, at the roadside, as the funeral passed by. This school had been a special object of charity at the hands of the deceased.

When he settled in Chicago with his bride, he established a retail and wholesale coal business, which he sold when he decided to move to California. Once in Los Angeles, McGarry bought a vineyard at 8th and Alameda streets, where he established his home for the next twenty years. He later subdivided and sold that property. He established a real-estate partnership, McGarry & Innes, and became active in the city's development. He was a director of the First National Bank.

McGarry was a losing candidate in an 1898 election for a Board of Freeholders that was chosen to draft the new charter for Los Angeles.

In 1900 McGarry was a member of a civic group called the "Committee of Fifteen," which had been appointed by a Citizens' Committee of Safety to "unearth municipal corruption." It made its report on November 7 of that year adversely criticizing the Los Angeles Police Department.

Memberships

McGarry was a member of the Newman Club, Los Angeles Pioneers Society, the Elks Lodge, the Knights of Columbus and a Shakespearean society. He was also in the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

References and notes

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