Leon Gary

Leon J. Gary, Sr. (August 20, 1913 – October 27, 1996), was a Democratic politician who served from 1948 to 1964 as the mayor of Houma, the seat of Terrebonne Parish in south Louisiana.^[1]

Background

Originally from Iberia Parish, Gary is a descendant of Juan Garrido (reduced to "Gary"), who was born c. 1737 in Malaga, Spain.^[2] Gary was married to the former Lolita Theriot, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Theriot. The couple had three children, Leon J. Gary, Jr., an attorney from Baton Rouge and his wife, Rhea Gary, an artist;^[3]Lolita M. "Girlie" Gary of Metairie, and Don Leon Gary (c. 1942-2010), a geography professor at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux.^[4]

Career

Gary earned his livelihood as a distributor for an oil company and later as a banker. Gary was the president in 1941 of the Houma chapter of Rotary International.^[1] During World War II, Gary was a member of the Houma branch of the federal Office of Price Administration. Over a five-year period, the "ration board", as it was known, had regulated and stabilized prices on scarce consumer goods. The Houma office closed on November 4, 1946. Gary said that the board was "proud of one thing: We always guided ourselves when issuing critical material on a high-priority basis. Much pressure was put on us, but as a member of the program I feel that we gave such material to the people entitled to it. We did the job as well as we possibly could."^[5]

Gary's sixteen years as mayor are remembered for the expansion of the Houma electrical and water systems and mineral development. Four-inch water pipes on Main Street were replaced by 8-inch pipes.^[6]

In 1952, Gary ran for lieutenant governor on the gubernatorial ticket headed by fellow Democrat Bill Dodd. The position however went to C. E. "Cap" Barham, a member of the Louisiana State Senate from Ruston.

From 1957 to 1958, Gary was president of the Louisiana Municipal Association.^[7]

Mayor Gary was a delegate to the 1956 Democratic National Convention, which met in Chicago to nominate the Stevenson-Kefauver ticket, the first party slate to lose the electoral votes of Louisiana since Reconstruction.^[8]

After he left the mayoralty, Gary was appointed in 1964 as the director of the Louisiana Department of Public Works by incoming Governor John McKeithen. He succeeded Claude Kirkpatrick, the DPW director under Jimmie Davis, who had run in the 1963 Democratic primary for governor against McKeithen and a large field of other candidates. In 1969, McKeithen shifted Gary to the position of state highway director^[6] upon the sudden resignation of A. B. Ratcliff, Jr.^[9]After two years, Gary resigned in 1971 from the highway post to enter an undisclosed private business.^[10]

The defunct Life Magazine called Gary "the man to see whenever a state legislator wants to line up free accommodations in Las Vegas." The magazine said the go-between was an associate of Carlos Marcello, the former boss of organized crime in Louisiana. Gary denied the magazine's claim.^[10]

References