Los Angeles County
Biographies
WILLIAM MAY GARLAND
William May Garland has long been numbered among the leading and most valued citizens of Los Angeles, where he has been actively identified with the real estate business throughout a period covering nearly four decades. He was born in Westport, Maine, March 31, 1866, a son of Jonathan May and Rebecca Hagan (Jewett) Garland, both representing old families of New England. Jonathan M. Garland was a Methodist minister and filled a number of pulpits in Maine. Later he moved to Florida, where he operated an orange grove until his death in 1908, at the age of sixty-six years. During the Civil war he was in the hospital service under the United States Christian Commission. To him and his wife, who died in New York when about sixty-seven years of age, were born two sons and one daughter.
William May Garland received his education in the public schools of Waterville, Maine, and afterward removed to Boston, Massachusetts, there working in the wholesale and retail crockery house for one year. Then he made his way to Daytona, Florida, where until 1884 he was associated with his father, who owned an orange grove and also operated a stage line at that place. When a youth of eighteen years he went to Chicago, Illinois, and secured employment as a messenger in the Merchants National Bank. By reason of his faithful and efficient discharge of his duties he was successively promoted until, with less than six years, he became receiving teller in the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank of that city. In 1890, because of a threatened break in his health, Mr. Garland came to Los Angeles and accepted a position as auditor of the Pacific Cable Railway Company, serving in that capacity until 1894, when he resigned and engaged in the real estate business, which he has followed to the present time and in which he has been highly successful. He is now identified with W. M. Garland & Company, one of the strongest real estate firms in Los Angeles, with offices in the William May Garland building at 117 West Ninth Street. Mr. Garland subdivided and sold the Wilshire Boulevard tract, and the Garland tract and a few other subdivisions, but aside from these has confined his efforts almost exclusively to the handling of down-town business properties. In his special field of practice he is without a superior, and millions of dollars worth of such property has been sold by him.
Mr. Garland also has other important business connections. He was for many years a director of the Los Angeles Trust & Savings Bank and is now vice president of the Western Air Express Company, engaged in carrying mail between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City and operating passenger service to San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Kansas City. He is president of the California Standard Finance Corporation and served for two years as president of the State Chamber of Commerce. He is regarded as a man of accurate and dependable judgment, and the splendid success which has come to him has been but the legitimate fruitage of energetic, progressive and well directed efforts.
On the 12th of October, 1898, Mr. Garland was united in marriage to Miss S. Blanche Hinman, of Dunkirk, New York, a daughter of Marshall L. and Amanda M. Hinman. They are the parents of two sons: William Marshall, who was graduated from Harvard University with the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1924; and John Jewett, a graduate of Yale University of 1925. The family residence is at 815 West Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles.
In politics Mr. Garland is stanch republican. He was California member of the notification committee which visited William McKinley at Canton, Ohio, in 1900, to notify him of his nomination for the presidency. He served with the rank of colonel on the staff of Governor Gillett of California form 1906 to 1910 and during the World war he was one of the dollar-a-year men in Washington. In 1923 he was the Pacific Coast delegate with two other Americans to the International Olympic Committee that went to Rome, Italy, and secured for 1932 the celebration of the tenth Olympiad in the United States, at Los Angeles, which proved to be the greatest success of all the Olympiads held since modern Olympism was revived in 1896. His services in connection with the Olympic games have been deeply appreciated and recognized by the chief executives of many foreign countries, who in turn have conferred upon him many high orders and decorations. Mr. Garland has been particularly active in affairs relating to the welfare of his home city and county, having served as a member of the Los Angeles board of education and as a member of the public library board. He was one of the organizers of the Los Angeles Realty Board, of which he served as president three times. He has also served twice as president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards. His name is on the membership rolls of the University Club; the California Club, of which he is an ex-president; the Crags Country Club, of which he was president for ten years; the Bolsa Chica Gun Club, of which he was president for six years. He is now president of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, which position he has held for fifteen years; the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, and the Union Interalliee of Paris, France.
Transcribed
By: Michele Y. Larsen on December 31, 2012.
Source:
California of the South Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty,
Pages 584-587, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis.
1933.
© 2012 Michele
Y. Larsen.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES