John Tracy Gaffey (November 1, 1860 – January 9, 1935) was a journalist, state and city official, real-estate speculator and investor at the turn of the 20th century in Los Angeles, California.

His oldest brother, William, became wanted by the authorities for sedition because of his beliefs regarding Irish independence, and so and his family, headed by a widow with seven children, emigrated to California in 1866-67 via the Isthmus of Panama.

[2] They pioneered near Santa Cruz on a cattle and sheep ranch, later moving to San Francisco, where Gaffey went to high school and then spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley.

[6][7] Around 1904 or 1905 he moved the family from Los Angeles to San Pedro, where he built a rustic ranch house in 1906, at 1131 West Third Street.

He later moved that house across the street and on the first lot he built a three-story homet, which he named Hacienda La Rambla.