(7 Feb. 1895-6 March 1978), contractor. (John L. McLaughlin, Jay McLaughlin, J. L. McLaughlin) Born at North Lancaster, GC. Parents: Angus L. McLaughlin and his wife Jeanette McRae. He grew up in Livingston, Mont., and attended high school there. He served with U.S. forces in WWI, achieving the rank of master sergeant, and returned to Montana in 1919. He worked for the construction firm McLaughlin and O’Neill, in which his father was a partner. Later he headed his own construction company, McLaughlin Inc. He has been described as “one of the giants of the construction industry in the West.” From 1930 he lived in Great Falls, Mont. Operating on a large scale in the United States including Alaska, and active occasionally in Canada, among his many projects he built dams, canals, railroads, soldiers’ housing, military and airport facilities, radar and nike sites, and roads including many in Yellowstone National Park.

     A very wealthy man, of great generosity, he was a noted benefactor to his town of Great Falls and to the College of Great Falls and to the wider community both in his lifetime and by his will. His benefactions included $500,000 in 1964 towards the construction of the McLaughlin Memorial Center recreation complex on the College of Great Falls campus. Through his generosity, his name was also perpetuated by the McLaughlin Research Institute, which was a cancer research facility associated with the Columbus Hospital of Great Falls, dedicated in 1967, and the McLaughlin Foundation, which provided scholarships. Other gifts included $100,000 to the local art gallery. Roman Catholic. He was married (1) in 1923 to Mrs Stella Holt Henderson, who died 1 Feb. 1968 (two children, one surviving him), and (2) to Amy Currell.

     Jay McLaughlin died in a hospital in Brawley, Calif., after an apparent heart attack. He had been residing at his winter home in Borrego Springs, Calif. He was little known in GC during his lifetime, and his obituary was reprinted in the Glengarry News only through the accident that a man of GC connections noticed it while travelling on business in Montana. In GC history, McLaughlin has the melancholy position of being the last of that most remarkable race of men, the great GC-born contractors who achieved such eminence in the United States and Western Canada, principally in the late 19th and early 20th century. He received an honorary doctorate from the College of Great Falls, and a major highway bridge near Great Falls was named in his honour in 1962. Norma L. Paradis names him among the supporters and promoters of her McRae family history of 1977, the useful work cited in the notes to the present dictionary by the word Paradis.

Great Falls Tribune 7 March 1978, repr. Glengarry News 22 March 1978 (with same portrait in both) * misc. biog. material from College of Great Falls (clippings, and typescript of tribute at presentation of his honorary degree) * biog. sketches in Pacific Builder & Engineer (July 1961) p. 69 and Dick Coon, “Man behind the Name…,” GFT 28 Jan. 1968, both with portraits * “McLaughlin Research Institute Dedicated,” GFT 18 May 1967 * report on will: GFT, 18 March 1978 * MacGillivray & Ross 523 * Ross, Lancaster, 413-415 (construction projects) * sources as for life of his father * Paradis 11, 65, 68 * private information