Donald M. Graham - City of South Pasadena historic Resources Group
Donald M. Graham was married to his former classmate, Margaret Collier Graham in 1873. Due to Donald Graham's poor health, the couple made their way to California in 1876. He obtained the contract to bring the mail from Los Angeles to Pasadena, becoming Pasadena's first official mail carrier which provided him with the open air to help arrest his tuberculosis. In 1887 he opened a real estate office in Los Angeles and as the real estate "boom" began in the 1880's, the Grahams, along with Margaret's brother William C. Collier and Franklin H. Heald developed the town of Elsinore from the old California land grant of Rancho la Laguna. The Grahams and William Collier subdivided the neighboring town of Wildomar from part of the Laguna Rancho and part of the Santa Rosa Rancho. Donald was also influential in the early development of the City of South Pasadena and was elected the town's first mayor. The founding couple spent years traveling between the newly established rural Wildomar and the City of South Pasadena.