Wilson Augustus McGinnis was born in Dyer County, Tennessee, in February, 1850. He was the youngest of ten children belonging to John S. McGinnis and his wife, Martha Mathis (or Matthews?).
By 1884, Wilson was in Phillips County, Arkansas, where he married Letitia “Lula” Vaughan on February 15th. Their first child, Neil Weston McGinnis, was born about a year later across the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee. Eula, their second child, was born in August 1886 in Texas. By July 20, 1888, the McGinnises was in Phoenix, Arizona, where four more children were born to them.
Wilson McGinnis was a very busy architect, surveyor and
civil engineer in Phoenix and central-northern Arizona. He formed a partnership with another
architect, Fred Heinlein, and, in 1890, they were the architects for the
territorial insane asylum. He served as
Phoenix’s city engineer until February 1893, when he resigned over a
disagreement with the City Council.
McGinnis owned an almond orchard in south Phoenix. In July 1895, the trees were bearing
nuts. He was also interested in growing
ramie, a natural fiber.
On June 27, 1896, Fred Heinlein, the architect originally
selected for the Normal School in Tempe, was discharged and the position given
to McGinnis. A year later, he received a
contract to examine the unfinished boys’ reform school in Flagstaff and design
plans to convert it into an insane asylum.
However, the contract was cancelled in August, 1897.
W. A. Mc Ginnis was the Maricopa County surveyor until he
suffered a breakdown in 1898. In June,
he was remanded to the asylum he had helped design. His wife took him back to Tennessee in July
in hopes that a change of scenery would benefit him, but to no avail.
McGinnis’s illness left two of his projects unfinished. Evidently the Board of Control decided that
one insane asylum was enough for the Territory.
The reform school in Flagstaff was converted instead into Northern
Arizona University. Architect James
Miller Creighton stepped in to finish Old Main at what is now ASU.
McGinnis died on August 2, 1899. He was buried initially in the AOUW cemetery, Block 18, Lot 3. His remains and those of his little daughter Etta were later moved to the newly-opened Greenwood Cemetery.
McGinnis had an AOUW life insurance policy which paid $2000 on his demise. The money was used to pay off the mortgage on his almond orchard in the expectation that it would provide an income for his family.
- by Tim Kovacs and Donna Carr
