Frank Frakes

Last updated April 02, 2019

Frank Frakes (1860-1933) was a pioneer rancher in the Antelope Valley in Southern California.^[1]

Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi and the San Gabriel Mountains. The valley was named for the pronghorns that roamed there until they were all but eliminated in the 1880s, mostly by hunting, or resettled in other areas. The principal cities in the Antelope Valley are Palmdale and Lancaster.

Southern California Place in California, United States

Southern California is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises California's southernmost counties, and is the second most populous urban agglomeration in the United States. The region is traditionally described as eight counties, based on demographics and economic ties: Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. The more extensive 10-county definition, which includes Kern and San Luis Obispo counties, is also used and is based on historical political divisions.

Early life

Born in Adel, Iowa, Frank Frakes moved to California in 1875 to join his uncle Samuel H. T. Frakes (1834-1911).^[2] Samuel Frakes had moved to California from Iowa in 1849 and finally settled in the Antelope Valley with his wife Almeda Mudgett Frakes (1838-1934) and son William Franklin Frakes, living first in Del Sur, California and then finally Elizabeth Lake (Los Angeles County, California).^[3]

Adel is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Iowa, United States. It is located along the North Raccoon River. Its population was 3,682 at the 2010 Census.

William Franklin Frakes (1858-1942) was an American rancher, naturalist, adventurer, and author. The son of Elizabeth Lake, pioneers Samuel H. T. Frakes and Almeda Mudgett Frakes, William Frakes grew up on their ranch next to that of his cousin Frank Frakes. He studied in San Jose, probably at the forerunner of the University of the Pacific, but then left to pursue a life focused on the outdoors. He traveled to Argentina in the 1890s, where he explored the country, collected animals, and also fought off a bandit ambush. He introduced the nutria to North America from Argentina and set up a nutria farm at his ranch in Elizabeth Lake in 1899 .. Later some nutria escaped and went feral, with negative ecological impacts. In 1904, he also introduced quail to Santa Catalina Island, founding the quail covey there.. He tried to domesticate bighorn sheep with mixed results. He enjoyed hunting in the Antelope Valley and at his hunting cabin near Camp Cady, CA with his cousin William Mudgett (1877-1946) of Neenach, CA. Also a writer of nature and adventure stories, Will Frakes had a surprisingly engaging style. He moved to Phoenix in 1920 and died there in 1942.

Del Sur is an unincorporated community in the Mojave Desert, in Los Angeles County, California. The town has a population of about 1,750. The ZIP Code is 93536 and the community is inside area code 661.

Antelope Valley

Uncle and nephew eventually homesteaded on the shores of Elizabeth Lake (Los Angeles County, California).^[4] The Frakes family also donated land to found the Elizabeth Lake school.^[5] In addition to running his ranch with a herd of cattle,^[6] Frank Frakes owned a store and served as Post Master of Elizabeth Lake, California in 1880's and 1890's.^[7]

Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It is characterized by subsistence agriculture, home preservation of food, and may also involve the small scale production of textiles, clothing, and craftwork for household use or sale. Pursued in different ways around the world—and in different historical eras—homesteading is generally differentiated from rural village or commune living by isolaion of the homestead. Use of the term in the United States dates back to the Homestead Act (1862) and before. In sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in nations formerly controlled by the British Empire, a homestead is the household compound for a single extended family. In the UK, the term 'smallholder' or 'crofts' is the rough equivalent of 'homesteader'.

Elizabeth Lake is a natural lake that lies directly on the San Andreas Fault in the northern Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northwestern Los Angeles County, southern California.

Elizabeth Lake is a census-designated place (CDP) and town on Elizabeth Lake (lake), in northwestern Los Angeles County, California.

Political life

Frakes served as Judge of Elections in Antelope Valley.^[8]

He received national press attention in 1911, both for distance traveled and for his sense of humor, during his interview for jury duty for the trial for the McNamara brothers who had bombed the Los Angeles Times building in 1910.^[9]

Personal life

Frank Frakes married Mary Jane Humphreys (1866-1950) and had several children including Samuel Franklin Frakes, James A. Frakes, Frank B. Frakes (father of geologist Lawrence A. Frakes, the namesake of Mount Frakes in Antarctica), George H. Frakes, Samantha May Frakes, Bertha Frakes (Bittick), and Nellie Almeda Frakes. ^[10]

Lawrence A. Frakes is an American-born Geologist and Paleoclimatologist residing in Australia since 1973. He holds (Emeritus) the Douglas Mawson Professor of Geology chair, at the University of Adelaide, in South Australia. Mount Frakes, a shield volcano in the Crary Mountains of Antarctica, is named for him.

Mount Frakes is a prominent shield volcano marking the highest elevation in the Crary Mountains, in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica and is the third highest volcanic elevation on the continent.

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent. It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres, it is the fifth-largest continent. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km in thickness, which extends to all but the northernmost reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula.

In 1903, at the age of 43, he won the wrestling championship of the Antelope Valley.^[11]

Legacy

After Frank Frakes' death, his ranch eventually became the Edgewater Park Club while the land of Samuel H. T. Frakes became the Lake Elizabeth Golf and Ranch Club.^[12] The Powerhouse Fire of 2013 destroyed the ranch house of Frank Frakes as well as his almond and fruit tree orchard.^[13]

Related Research Articles

Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, is the most populous county in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of the U.S. state of California and is the most populous county in the United States, with more than 10 million inhabitants as of 2017. As such, it is the largest non–state level government entity in the United States. Its population is larger than that of 41 individual U.S. states. It is the third-largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a Nominal GDP of over $700 billion—larger than the GDPs of Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Norway, and Taiwan. It has 88 incorporated cities and many unincorporated areas and, at 4,083 square miles (10,570 km²), it is larger than the combined areas of Delaware and Rhode Island. The county is home to more than one-quarter of California residents and is one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the U.S. Its county seat, Los Angeles, is also California's most populous city and the nation's second largest city with about 4 million people.

Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. The city lies in the Antelope Valley region of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the city of Los Angeles to the south.

The Santa Clarita Valley is part of the upper watershed of the Santa Clara River in Southern California. The valley was part of the 48,612-acre (19,673 ha) Rancho San Francisco Mexican land grant. Located in Los Angeles County, its main population center is the city of Santa Clarita which includes the communities of Canyon Country, Newhall, Saugus, and Valencia. Adjacent unincorporated communities include Castaic, Stevenson Ranch, Val Verde, and the new master planned community of Newhall Ranch.

Neenach is an agricultural settlement in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, with a population of about 800. It is facing a massive change with the proposed construction of a 23,000-home planned community to its north called Centennial.

Leona Valley is a census-designated place located in the geographic Leona Valley of northern Los Angeles County, California, in the transition between the Sierra Pelona Mountains and Mojave Desert, just west of Palmdale and the Antelope Valley. The population was 1,607 at the 2010 census.

Frederick Carlisle "Snow" Snodgrass was an American center fielder in Major League baseball from 1908 to 1916 for the New York Giants and the Boston Braves. He played under manager John McGraw and with some of the game's early greats, including Christy Mathewson. He is best known for dropping a key fly ball in the 1912 World Series. Snodgrass was immortalized in the Lawrence Ritter book The Glory of Their Times.

Lake Hughes is an unincorporated community in the foothills of the Sierra Pelona Mountains, northwest of Palmdale and north of the Santa Clarita Valley, in the Angeles National Forest. It is on the sag pond waters of Lake Hughes and Elizabeth Lake. The community is rural in character, with a population of 649 in 2010, but also has a strong recreational element centered on the three lakes in the vicinity. The community of Elizabeth Lake is located just east of Lake Hughes, sharing the same ZIP code.

A movie ranch is a ranch that is at least partially dedicated for the creation and production of motion pictures and television productions. Originally, they were all within the 30-mile (48 km) studio zone, often in the foothills of the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley and Simi Valley.

Sandberg is the name of a post office and small surrounding community that was attached to The Sandberg Lodge, located on the Ridge Route highway in the Sierra Pelona Mountains of Southern California. The Ridge Route linked the Greater Los Angeles area to the San Joaquin Valley and Central California from 1919 through 1933.

The Sierra Pelona Mountains, or the Sierra Pelona Ridge, is a mountain range of the Transverse Ranges in Southern California. Located in northwest Los Angeles and southern Kern Counties, the range is bordered on the north by the San Andreas fault and lies within and is surrounded by the Angeles National Forest.

Mud Spring, formerly Aquaje Lodoso, is a spring and historic site in the western Antelope Valley, within northern Los Angeles County, southern California.

Willow Springs Canyon is a canyon cut by Willow Springs Canyon Wash. Its source is at the head of the canyon in the gap in the Portal Ridge of the Transverse Range, 0.5 miles north of Elizabeth Lake. It is cut into the slope to the northeast into the Antelope Valley, crossing the California Aqueduct. The mouth of the Canyon is 0.25 miles southwest of its confluence with Myrick Canyon Wash which is 300 feet southwest of the intersection of Munz Ranch Road with the Neenach - Fairmont Road in Los Angeles County, California, USA.

The California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is a freely-available archive of digitized California newspapers, accessible at the project's web site. It contains millions of pages, ranging from the first publication in 1846 to contemporary issues. The project is part of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research at the University of California Riverside.

George Philip Hummel was an American business manager and investor. Resident engineer for Kern County, California, he has been cited as a county pioneer and one of the legends of the Antelope Valley.

George Edward Frakes is an American historian.

References

↑ Norma Gurba, Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley (Arcadia Publishing, 2013), p. 11.
↑ Nellie F. Thompson, "Authentic Early History of Antelope Valley," in The Heritage Quest: Seven Communities Oral History Project (Los Angeles, 1982); see also the Obituary of Frank Frakes in The Antelope Valley Ledger Gazette, March 2, 1933.
↑ Gurba, Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley, p. 11 and the obituary of Almeda Frakes in the South Antelope Valley Press, February 22, 1934.
↑ Thompson, "Authentic Early History of Antelope Valley."
↑ Thompson, "Authentic Early History of Antelope Valley"; Gurba, Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley, p. 11.
↑ Glen and Dorene Settle, Antelope Valley Pioneers (Kern County Historical Society, 1984), p. 87 and California Brand Book (Bureau of Livestock Identification, 1926), p. 41.
↑ Thompson, "Authentic Early History of Antelope Valley;" http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id6/History%20File/Lk.%20Eliz.%20Rch.%20Chatter%20July%201968.pdf.
↑ Los Angeles Herald, Oct. 29, 1902, pp. 4-5; see digital copy at http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH18900531.2.36.6.
↑ Oakland Tribune, Oct. 27, 1911, and The Oklahoma Farmer and Laborer 3, no. 30 (Nov. 3, 1911), p. 1 on how his "laugh infected the courtroom." The San Francisco Call, November 8, 1911, described him as a "happy-go-lucky rancher."
↑ Gurba, Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley, p. 12 (Nellie Frakes' picture is also on the book cover).
↑ See Obituary of Frank Frakes in The Antelope Valley Ledger Gazette, March 2, 1933.
↑ See the images and remembrances collected by the Lake Elizabeth Mutual Water Company at http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id90/Oldies/Edgewater/Edgewater%20Park.JPG, http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id90.htm and http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id6/History%20File/Lake%20Eliz.%20Rch.%20Club%201964%20events.pdf. See also the overview of the Lake Elizabeth Golf and Ranch Club preserved at http://www.oocities.org/golflakeelizabeth
↑ See Ranch Chatter (Newsletter of the Lake Elizabeth Ranch Club), vol. 3, no. 4 of October 15, 1969 on the Frakes orchards at http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id6/History%20File/3%5B4Lk%20Eliz.%20Rch.%20Chatter%20Oct%201969.pdf. For further on the destruction of the Powerhouse Fire, see article at the Santa Clarita Valley TV website at: http://www.scvhistory.com/pico/lw2396d.htm.

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[1] Norma Gurba, Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley (Arcadia Publishing, 2013), p. 11.

[2] Nellie F. Thompson, "Authentic Early History of Antelope Valley," in The Heritage Quest: Seven Communities Oral History Project (Los Angeles, 1982); see also the Obituary of Frank Frakes in The Antelope Valley Ledger Gazette, March 2, 1933.

[3] Gurba, Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley, p. 11 and the obituary of Almeda Frakes in the South Antelope Valley Press, February 22, 1934.

[4] Thompson, "Authentic Early History of Antelope Valley."

[5] Thompson, "Authentic Early History of Antelope Valley"; Gurba, Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley, p. 11.

[6] Glen and Dorene Settle, Antelope Valley Pioneers (Kern County Historical Society, 1984), p. 87 and California Brand Book (Bureau of Livestock Identification, 1926), p. 41.

[7] Thompson, "Authentic Early History of Antelope Valley;" http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id6/History%20File/Lk.%20Eliz.%20Rch.%20Chatter%20July%201968.pdf.

[8] Los Angeles Herald, Oct. 29, 1902, pp. 4-5; see digital copy at http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH18900531.2.36.6.

[9] Oakland Tribune, Oct. 27, 1911, and The Oklahoma Farmer and Laborer 3, no. 30 (Nov. 3, 1911), p. 1 on how his "laugh infected the courtroom." The San Francisco Call, November 8, 1911, described him as a "happy-go-lucky rancher."

[10] Gurba, Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley, p. 12 (Nellie Frakes' picture is also on the book cover).

[11] See Obituary of Frank Frakes in The Antelope Valley Ledger Gazette, March 2, 1933.

[12] See the images and remembrances collected by the Lake Elizabeth Mutual Water Company at http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id90/Oldies/Edgewater/Edgewater%20Park.JPG, http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id90.htm and http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id6/History%20File/Lake%20Eliz.%20Rch.%20Club%201964%20events.pdf. See also the overview of the Lake Elizabeth Golf and Ranch Club preserved at http://www.oocities.org/golflakeelizabeth

[13] See Ranch Chatter (Newsletter of the Lake Elizabeth Ranch Club), vol. 3, no. 4 of October 15, 1969 on the Frakes orchards at http://www.lakeelizabethwater.com/id6/History%20File/3%5B4Lk%20Eliz.%20Rch.%20Chatter%20Oct%201969.pdf. For further on the destruction of the Powerhouse Fire, see article at the Santa Clarita Valley TV website at: http://www.scvhistory.com/pico/lw2396d.htm.