John Donald Daly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John D. Daly (1840- January 1, 1923), was a businessman and landowner. The city of Daly City, California was named after him when it incorporated in 1911.
[edit] Biography
He had started out from Boston in 1853 at the age of 13, accompanying his mother by ship. His mother died on the Panama crossing and the youngster found work on a dairy farm on his arrival in what became San Mateo County. John Donald Daly learnt the dairy business well and got married to the boss's daughter. By 1868 he had gained enough knowledge and money to purchase some 250 acres (1.0 km²) at the "top-of-the-hill." The enterprise was known as the San Mateo Dairy and was soon supplying milk and its products from the dairy's own cows and from a consortium of other dairies.
Daly became a prominent businessman and leader among the burgeoning population of the area. In the early 1860s a railroad ran south to San Jose, passing around the westerly edge of Daly's ranch. Stores, hotels, butcher shops, and other businesses blossomed at the bottom of the hill, a cluster of activity that embraced a new schoolhouse, railway station, and a Catholic church. The north peninsula was growing in population. Many of the newcomers were Italians, who managed to grow crops where others had failed.
By the early 1890s streetcars were running from San Francisco to communities as far south as San Mateo, coming right over Daly's Hill, as a stop was appropriately named. John Donald Daly moved into San Francisco in 1885, seeking better schooling for his children, but maintained his business at the "top-of-the-hill." He helped establish a bank in the new community, donated funds for the first library, and was a political leader if not a resident. Among new businesses in the adjacent Colma area towards the turn of the century were cemeteries, recently banned from San Francisco, where land was deemed too valuable for dead folks. Movement now was underway to form a community, but many of the farmers feared city-type taxes and fought against such issues. It wasn't until the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco that the population surged around the "top-of-the-hill." Daly opened his farmlands for emergency use by the scores of refugees who fled the devastation. Supplying temporary shelter, milk, butter, eggs, and kindness, Daly began to realize that his lands were far more useful for living on than grazing cattle. He subdivided his property in 1907, and streets were quickly laid out. Many of the original houses were dragged out from mass refugee camps on public lands in San Francisco. A drayer named H.H. Smith bought a number of 14' x 20' temporary houses, dragged them out and set them on inexpensive lots on many locations across the county line.
Now the pressure to become a city was growing, and by 1911 there was sufficient support to incorporate. By a slim margin a new town was voted into San Mateo County. It was named Daly City, in honor of the residents' good friend John Daly.
Streets were paved, sewers and a water system were introduced, police and fire protection became a reality, and Daly City was on its way. More schools were built, the city council erected a City Hall half a block away from Daly's former dairy ranch, and other subdivisions began to fill in the gap tooth's with new housing.
Prior to the earthquake, dog racing was a big attraction, with trains and streetcars bringing thousands to the sparsely-populated hills of the area across the county line. Boxing matches were held in quickly-built arenas near the edge of San Francisco, where gambling was less restricted than in the City.
John Daly died at home on New Year's Day 1923. [1]
