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"Spokane and The Spokane Country - Pictorial and Biographical - Deluxe Supplement." Vol. II. The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912. (No author listed.) pgs. 234-236.
REMARKABLY successful career has been that of Patrick C. Shine since
he entered upon the practice of law as a member of the Spokane bar. He was
born in County Limerick, Ireland, December 25, 1863. His parents were Michael
and Ellen (Conners) Shine, who sent their son to the hedge school of the
locality, subsequently to the National village school at Athea, and finally he
completed his education at the College and Civil Service Academy of Limerick
city. He was bookkeeper for J. P. Newsom & Company of Limerick for three years
thereafter.
He was one of a large family and in 1885 he came to America joining
his brothers and father in Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked for a time
as street car conductor for the Metropolitan Street Railway Company. He next
entered the employ of the Union Pacific Railroad, and in 1887-8, filled the
office of deputy county collector of Jackson county, Missouri. Ambitious to
have broader opportunities in other fields, he took up the study of law during
that period, devoting all of his leisure hours to the mastery of the
principles of jurisprudence. On leaving the office of deputy county collector
of Jackson county, he returned to the Union Pacific Railway as statistic clerk
and assistant cashier at Kansas City and from that point was transferred to
Huntington, Oregon, as cashier for the joint agency of the Oregon Short Line
and Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company. Subsequently he filled various
positions with the latter com-pany in all its departments. In 1894 he came to
Spokane where he was employed by the Union Depot Company.
Mr. Shine had no sooner become a resident of this city than he severed
his residence relations with Kansas City which he always theretofore claimed
as his home. Edwin McNeill, then president of the Iowa Central Railway,
offered him a responsible position with that road, but Mr. Shine refused to
leave the west and continued in his less lucrative position at Spokane. Edwin
McNeill, who was then prospective reorganizer of the Union Pacific system with
head-quarters at Portland, promised him the position of superintendent of a
prospective division between Spokane, Washington, and La Grande, Oregon.
Meantime by and with the encouragement of the superintendent of the Union
Depot, Mr. Shine became a member of the American Railway Union, and was
promptly elected its secretary and treasurer.
This affiliation changed his course completely and forced him into
politics which became the stepping stone to his chosen profession. He was
cashier and chief deputy county treasurer under George Mudgett for two
consecutive terms. After he had successfully passed the required examination
for admission to the bar, in January of 1899, he was appointed local counsel
for his old employer, the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company. Later, at the
instance of the legatees of the McNeill estate, he was appointed administrator
with will annexed of the estate of Edwin McNeill, who died in New York. Other
interests connected with his now extensive clientele have made him an official
of various real-estate holding corporations. He has served as British Columbia
Commissioner for the past ten years. He was always active in politics and was
chairman of the Peoples' Party central committee, chairman of the executive
committee of the Fusion Party, composed of populists, democrats and silver
republicans, in 1896, when John R. Rogers was elected governor of the state of
Washington. Since then he has been mentioned for various appointive political
positions, but he has never accepted one. At the present time he is not
affiliated with any political organization, although he keeps well informed on
the questions and issues of the day and advocates such measures and principles
as he believes will prove helpful in municipal and general government.
On March 15, 1904, Mr. Shine was married, at San Francisco,
California, to Miss Mary Louise Gomm, a native of Savannah, Georgia, and they
now have two children, Patrick and Mary. Mr. Shine belongs to the Spokane Club
and is a life member of the Spokane Amateur Athletic Club. He believes that
trusts and labor organizations are fundamentally the same in principle and
that both should be controlled by federal regulations. He has the social
qualities, the ready wit and attractive personality, characteristic of the
people of the Emerald isle, combined with the ambition and enterprise so
common in the west, and these qualities have made him popular as a man and
successful as a lawyer.
Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton
* * * * Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies Project. Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the individuals featured in the biographies.