St. Marguerite Parish history includes benefactor who was a famous speed-typist turned banker

Friday, Nov. 14, 2014

By Emma Penrod

What’s in a name? Quite a lot of forgotten history, if the name in question is that of Saint Marguerite Catholic Church.

The origin of the Tooele parish’s name, which the church formally adopted during the first building’s 1910 groundbreaking, is difficult to trace. Because the official record of the groundbreaking ceremony likely was lost when the parish had a new church building constructed in the 1970s, unraveling the mystery requires connecting the dots between the church, a young girl in Michigan, and a famous typist who briefly tried his hand at business in Tooele.

Like so many other Utah towns, Tooele was originally settled by Mormons, who intended to grow a little agrarian community in the desert there. But in the early 1900s, the arrival of the International Smelter brought a flood of immigrants to the area. According to the History of Tooele County, the smelting company hired a group of Irish contractors to start the construction of the smelter. These Irish contractors brought with them their Catholic faith, and consequently became the first sizable population of Catholics to live in Tooele City proper.

As the smelter hired additional immigrant workers, the number of Catholics in Tooele continued to grow. By 1910, the Catholic population in Tooele became large enough to entertain serious discussion of building a church. There just wasn’t any money to build it with.

Enter Frank McGurrin, a successful Salt Lake City businessman and president of the Commercial Bank of Tooele. McGurrin had won worldwide fame and fortune in typewriting contests — he was billed as the world’s fastest typist and to this day is credited with popularizing the QWERTY keyboard and touch-typing, but by 1894 he had quit the competition circuit and turned his attention to banking.

McGurrin also happened to be a devout Catholic and a good friend of Bishop Lawrence Scanlan, the pastor of Salt Lake City’s St. Mary Magdalene Parish.

One way or another, McGurrin ended up funding the construction of the original St. Marguerite Catholic Church. According to a 1910 edition of the Intermountain Catholic, McGurrin himself presented the cornerstone during a groundbreaking ceremony in early May. The newspaper reported that McGurrin asked for the church to be named “St. Marguerite’s Catholic Church” in honor of his niece, Marguerite McGurrin, who had passed away in November 1909 after an extended illness.

Little else is known about Marguerite McGurrin, except that she lived with her parents in Kalamazoo, Mich. Her father, Charles McGurrin, was a stenographer and, though not as well-known as his brother Frank, was noted for the speed he could attain while typing. 

The two brothers were evidently close, and various newspaper accounts indicate that they made regular cross-country trips to visit one another. 

Later newspaper articles suggest both Charles and Frank contributed to the construction of the Tooele church.

The McGurrins’ association with the Tooele parish was short-lived. Newspaper records indicate Frank McGurrin tired of banking as he had typing, and retired in 1915. He evidently moved to California, where he took up golf and became an avid competitor, again claiming many trophies, titles and winner’s purses. He died there in 1933.

Perhaps because his time in Tooele was so short, McGurrin left just a ghost of a memory in Tooele’s history, despite his large contribution to the area’s Catholic community. Unlike some of the town’s other forgotten historical figures, there are no local parks, roads or landmarks that bear McGurrin’s name. In fact, the church and a brief mention in his obituary that he had headed a bank in Tooele are the only remaining evidence that he had any connection to the area.

On the other hand, Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque — Marguerite McGurrin’s namesake saint and, consequently, the patron saint of Tooele’s Catholic parish — has grown in local popularity. The parish celebrates her feast day early, in September, with an annual Fall Festival that attracts hundreds of locals. Though Tooele Catholics no longer meet in the original building, the parish’s name stands as a quiet tribute to a young girl whom history otherwise forgot.