I have had many people speculate but no one has any facts. I thought maybe somewhere around the college there may be some information lurking some where in the corners that you could help me with. Last things first. It's called a hangar because it came, via French, from the Latin angarium for shed, or stable, or shoeing forge. Hanger , incidentally, comes from the Germanic hang , probably from the very old German khang- .
Garage comes from garer , a verb meaning to dock ships.
It is recorded in the London Daily Mail of 1902 in the sense of a large storage facility. The sense of a private structure for individual cars came later. Its meaning was described to be a critic. I've always thought it was a colorful word and that more than a few artist, actors, etc., would feel satisfaction in using it to describe the person who reviewed their work or performances. Sterne took exception to a work entitled Travels Through France and Italy by Tobias Smollett, published in 1766.