McGuire, Luther Roy

Luther Roy McGuire was born in Augusta County, Virginia, on October 16, 1886, where he grew up on his father’s farm and attended local country schools. Upon reaching adulthood, he managed the farm at the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C., for three and a half years before returning to Virginia to run a grocery business with his brother in Herndon for a year. In the fall of 1913, he moved to California to enter the fruit industry, working at the Malaga Packing House as a worker and eventual buyer, and developing a vineyard near Clovis for his uncle, J. F. Niswander.

Joining the California Peach Growers’ Association in the fall of 1916, McGuire installed machinery, worked as an inspector, and became manager of Plant No. 9 in Fresno. Beyond his association work, he engaged in land development and Fresno real estate, owning a producing fifty-five-acre peach and apricot ranch on Belmont Avenue. He married Fresno native Lucia Haber, and together they had one son, Luther Roy, Jr.