Michael Gerin, born September 19, 1848, in County Limerick, Ireland, emigrated to Ontario, Canada, with his parents, Michael and Julia (Fitzgerald) Gerin, at age three. In 1877, he moved to South Dakota, settling in Sioux Falls in 1878, where he opened a grocery and crockery store. His business thrived until he sold it in 1902. Gerin then focused on breeding shorthorn cattle, owning over three sections of prime land. He played a pivotal role in founding the Minnehaha County Agricultural Society, serving as its president. Gerin, a devout Catholic, is also active in the Knights of Columbus. He remained a bachelor.
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 livestock, 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.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.