Michael Gerin Biography

	This biography appears on page 720 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	MICHAEL GERIN comes of staunch old Irish lineage and is a native 
of County Limerick, Ireland, where he was born on the 19th of 
September, 1848, being a son of Michael and Julia (Fitzgerald) Gerin, 
who emigrated from the Emerald Isle to America when he was a child of 
three years, settling in the province of Ontario, Canada, where our 
subject was reared and educated. In 1877 he came to what is now the 
state of South Dakota and passed the first year in looking about the 
state for a location. He arrived in Sioux Falls in August, 1878, on the 
first train run over the line of the recently completed St. Paul, 
Minneapolis & Omaha Railroad. In the following December he established 
himself in business here, opening a grocery and crockery store of 
modest order and thoroughly identifying himself with the business and 
civic affairs of the little town. With the growth of the city his 
business expanded rapidly in scope and importance and at the time when 
he disposed of the same, in September, 1902, the enterprise was one of 
the leading ones of the sort in the city. For the past twelve years Mr. 
Gerin has given much attention to the raising of live stock, having the 
highest type of blooded shorthorn cattle and having gained a wide 
reputation as a breeder of this stock, while he conducts his operations 
upon an extensive scale, owning three and one-quarter sections of the 
finest land in the county and devoting practically his entire time and 
his ample capitalistic resources to the carrying forward of his stock 
and agricultural enterprises. He was one of the organizers of the 
Minnehaha County Agricultural Society, of which he has been president 
consecutively from the time of its inception to the present and having 
done much to further its progress and its value to the farmers and 
stock growers of the state. He is a communicant of the Catholic church 
and a prominent member of the Catholic Knights of Columbus, in which he 
is a grand knight. Mr. Gerin is a bachelor