California Biographies, San Joaquin Valley

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


FRANK S. SMITH, a dairyman of the Los Banos district, and former editor of the Los Banos 
Enterprise, was born on the old Smith place, near where he now lives, September ir, 1872, and 
has since allied his energy with the most substantial upbuilding of Merced county. Mr. Smith's 
father. Samuel A. Smith, of whom extended mention is made elsewhere in this work, was born 
in Illinois and came to the coast in the early '50s, crossing the plains with ox teams, and engaging 
in mining in Solano county. In 1866 he pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres of land in the 
west side of Merced enmity, which is now within half a mile of the town of Los Banos, and to 
which he has added, and now has two hundred acres. Owing to the fertility of this property, he 
has derived a gratifying income from alfalfa and stock, and of late years has leased it to his 
youngest son, Charles. Since practically the beginning of his success in life Mr. Smith has been a 
widower, for his wife, formerly Nancy Dollarhide, a native also of Illinois, died in 1878, leaving to 
his care and guidance five sons and two daughters, all of whom are living. These are Oscar, 
Jasper, Grant, Frank, Charles, Alice and Amanthus. 

The common school education of Frank S. Smith was supplemented by a course at the Stockton 
Business College, after graduating from which he returned to the home farm for a year. He 
next engaged in the general merchandise business in Los Banos for four years, after which he 
began to improve his present place, locating thereon in 1898. The first to cultivate the soil and 
build in this district, he has since raised alfalfa to a considerable extent, and now has a dairy of 
twenty-five cows, and other stock to the number of thirty. Mr. Smith has signaled his 
appreciation of the comforts and conveniences of life by erecting a modern and thoroughly up-
to-date country residence, presided over by the wife whom he married in Los Banos, and 
whose girlhood name was Effie Abbott, born in Merced county, and the daughter of an early 
California pioneer. Mr. Smith for a year edited the Los Banos Enterprise, at the end of that time 
returning to his farm with added regard for the peace and satisfaction of modern agricultural 
life. He is a Democrat in national politics, and fraternally is connected with the Woodmen of the 
World. As one of the younger and more energetic and resourceful of the dairymen and stock-
raisers of the vicinity of Los Banos, Mr. Smith occupies a position of honor, not only because he 
is a native son, but because he is honorable and public-spirited, broad minded and resourceful, 
and in his intercourse with friends and business men is tactful, considerate, and genial.