"[4] Born on February 16, 1842, on Penn Avenue near Ninth Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the building in which he would later conduct his duties as a city alderman during his adult years, McKenna was a son of labor activist and politician James McKenna and grandson of Hugh McKenna, who had emigrated from Tyrone, Ireland to Quebec, Canada, and then on foot to Pittsburgh during the early 1800s.

[20][21] On September 12, 1894, he addressed a crowd of former Union Army soldiers, in his capacity as Pittsburgh's mayor, during the opening of the twenty-eighth National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, which was held at Pittsburgh's Grand Opera House.

Also named to the first board were prominent Pittsburgh civic leaders William Jacob Holland and the Rev.

[26][27][28][29][30][31] In 1893, McKenna and his wife moved to a home on Howe Street in Pittsburgh's Twentieth Ward.

[32] Following a long period of illness,[33][34][35] McKenna died from heart and stomach-related complications at his Marchand Street home in Pittsburgh on June 18, 1903.

[36] The funeral was held at Sacred Heart Church on Saturday, June 20, and interment took place at St. Mary's Cemetery in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Lawrenceville.