Los Angeles County
Biographies
WILLIAM MAY GARLAND
GARLAND, WILLIAM MAY, Real Estate Dealer, Los Angeles, California, was born at Westport, Maine, March 31, 1866. His father was Jonathan May Garland and his mother Rebecca Heal (Jewett) Garland. From his parents, who were of sturdy New England stock, he inherited that spirit of thrift and aggressiveness which has made him such a prominent figure in the making of “The City Beautiful” of today. At Dunkirk, New York, October 12, 1898, he married Blanche Hinman, and to them two sons have been born, William Marshall and John Jewett Garland.
Mr. Garland was educated in the public schools of Waterville, Maine.
After his graduation from high school in went to Boston and entered the employ of a wholesale and retail crockery house. After a year spent at this occupation he decided to quit merchandising, and as his father owned an orange grove and operated a stage line at Daytona, Florida, he went there and was employed by his father until 1884. The call of the West had attracted his attention, and he located in Chicago, where he secured employment in the Merchants’ National Bank as messenger. In less than six years he was appointed receiving teller in the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago. Notwithstanding this rapid rise in banking, by reason of physicians’ advice Mr. Garland determined to go further west, and settled upon Los Angeles, arriving in that city in the winter of 1890. He obtained there the position of auditor of the old Pacific Cable Railway Company, which supplied the transportation service to the city a score of years ago. Mr. Garland was not long to discover the great possibilities of real estate operations, and at the end of three years’ service with the transportation lines he embarked in the real estate business. He has always been optimistic about Los Angeles as a home city, and has made some notable prophecies as to the wonderful growth in area and population. His latest prediction is that by the last of 1920 Los Angeles will have a population of 1,000,000.
The first important realty deal put through by Mr. Garland was the subdivision of the Wilshire Boulevard Tract, which was put on the market in 1896. At that time the whole section was unimproved and somewhat remote. Today it is noted as having some of the finest residences in the city, and is easily one of the famous show spots of the city. Mr. Garland’s closer interest, however, has been given to business property, and he has been especially successful in keeping well in advance of the trend of business improvement.
Mr. Garland was one of the organizers of the Los Angeles Realty Board, and is now its president. He is officer and director in several prominent corporations of the city, and in addition is a director of the Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank. He served two years on the Los Angeles Board of Library Directors and a similar term on the Board of Education. He is a staunch Republican and was a delegate to the National Convention which met at Philadelphia in 1900, when McKinley and Roosevelt were nominated. He was also the member from California of the notification committee which visited Canton, Ohio, to notify Major McKinley of his election to the Presidency.
Mr. Garland was Lieutenant Colonel and Aide-de-Camp on the staff of ex-Governor Gillett and is a member of the Los Angeles, Pasadena and Annandale Country clubs, and of the Los Angeles Athletic, Jonathan and Bolsa Chica Gun clubs and California Club, of which he was president during 1908.
Transcribed 5-10-09
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 265,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2009 Marilyn R. Pankey.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPIES