Matthew Joseph Lang: Builder's reputation stands amid many local structures

For almost 30 years, beginning In the 1950s, his company, M.J. Lang Construction, erected hundreds of buildings in Tucson, including seven churches.

It is in one of those churches, St. Cyril of Alexandria, 4725 E. Pima St., that he will be memorialized. Family and friends will gather at 3 p.m. Friday to remember Lang, who died July 6 after a long illness. He was 94.

Lang was born into a family of builders, and the construction genes continue on in several of his children and grandchildren who work in the business.

"Most of the members of our family, going back several generations, were stonemasons," son Larry Lang said. He is president of Diversified Design and Construction and works out of an office on East Fort Lowell Road that was the headquarters of his father's company.

When Matt Lang was 14, he got a summer job as a water boy on a construction site in his hometown of Buffalo, N.Y. He made $9 a week and found the grit-and-sawdust life of a builder intoxicating.

"Construction was his life. He loved construction," daughter-in-law Rochelle Lang said.

After he graduated from high school, Lang worked his way up the construction ladder on various job sites. Eventually, he was hired as head of the construction department for McLellan Stores, a five-and-dime chain.

Lang traveled from state to state for 15 years overseeing construction for the company. One of his stops — in the late 1940s — was Tucson, where a McLellan Store was going up Downtown.

"He got off the train and he loved it," his son said.

Lang spent a few more years working for the company before returning to Tucson to start his own construction business. He and his first wife, Helen, started the company — which eventually would be called M.J. Lang Construction — on a shoestring.

The couple had an old station wagon, and in the evenings they'd pack a supper and drive out to their construction site. Lang and his wife would collect the bent nails discarded by their workers and sit on their tailgate eating dinner and straightening the nails.

"They had to get these jobs done on so thin a margin they needed to save all they could," their son said.

Their hard work paid off and Lang became one of the biggest general contractors in Tucson during a time of booming commercial growth.

Lang's reputation for integrity — many jobs were agreed to with a handshake — and how well he treated his construction crews led a number of his McLellan workers to follow him to Tucson, his son said.

"He worked as hard as anyone who worked for him," Larry Lang said. "He'd be up before dawn and didn't come home until dark."

Lang's company built shopping centers, drugstores, banks, motels, car dealerships and other commercial developments in Arizona and surrounding states, plus an occasional jail or custom home and some of the outbuildings and telescope structures at Kitt Peak National Observatory, his son said.

"It's hard to drive down any street and not see something he built," Larry Lang said.

His father also was responsible for building seven Catholic churches in Tucson, 1961-72: Picture Rocks Church and Retreat, St. Joseph's, St. Cyril, Our Lady of the Valley in Green Valley, St. Odilia, St. Pius and the renovation of St. Augustine Cathedral.

In a 1987 Arizona Daily Star newspaper article, Lang talked about building the churches.

"I didn't make much money," he said. "I did them because I was a Catholic. Business was never really that tough. I could always make a living."

Retired architect Jim Merry moved to Tucson in 1959 and quickly made Lang's acquaintance.

"Matt was a big man — gave you the feeling of a John Wayne movie — over 6 feet tall, over 200 pounds, big head of hair, big mustache, outgoing personality. You couldn't help but like him," said Merry, whose daughter, Rochelle, eventually married Larry Lang.

Merry worked half a dozen jobs with Lang and saw how the man conducted himself.

"He was such a highly regarded contractor. He did quality work, he was fun to work for, he hired very good superintendents and he took care of his people," Merry said. "If they ran out of work for a little while he didn't lay them off; he'd find something to do with them. Maybe they would go to his ranch and do a little work."

It was a heart attack, then a stroke that prompted Lang to shut down his company and retire to his 17-acre East Side ranch in the mid-1980s.

"Looking after the place, that's what keeps me young," Lang said in the 1987 article.

He spent the last couple of decades living the life of a gentleman rancher, taking trail rides with his friends and playing an occasional round of golf.

He outlived most of his contemporaries, but Lang's interest in construction continued.

Over the last year, he had fallen a few times and his heart ailments persisted, requiring stays in hospitals and assisted-living centers. But he still pumped his son for news from the Tucson construction scene.

"He maintained an interest in construction up to the end of his life," his daughter-in-law said.

Life Stories

This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories. Past "Life Stories" are online at go.azstarnet.com/lifestories