Edward E. Frizell

EDWARD E. FRIZELL. A worthy representative of those energetic and progressive agriculturists who have brought to their calling good business methods and excellent judgment, Edward E. Frizell, of Larned, is recognized as one of the most extensive and prosperous farmers of Pawnee County, and as one of the more important factors in promoting the higher and better interests of this section of Kansas. A son of John M. Frizell, he was born August 24, 1860, in Mount Vernon, Illinois, where he acquired his elementary education. His grandfather, Joseph Frizell, an Englishman by birth and breeding, immigrated to Southern Illinois in 1807, and during the remainder of his life was engaged as a tiller of the soil near Mount Vernon.

John M. Frizell was born on the home farm in Illinois, being one of a family consisting of four sons and two daughters. During the Civil war he served with General Sheridan's army as captain of Company I, Sixtieth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He was on detail at home much of the time during his service, recruiting for the army and quieting the Knights of the Golden Circle and the Copperheads. In January, 1876, he came to Pawnee County, Kansas, where his son William had previously located, and took up a homestead near Garfield, unloading his household goods, however, in Larned. He lived to the ripe old age of eighty-one years, dying May 4, 1915, in Topeka, Kansas. His wife, whose maiden name was Rose Ann Hart, was born in Mount Vernon, Illinois, in 1841, and is now living in Larned, Pawnee County. The three children born of their marriage are William M., of Berkeley, California; John H., of Topeka, Kansas; and Edward E.

Coming with the family to Pawnee County in 1876, Edward E. Frizell and his brother John H. spent their first summer in Kansas with their older brother, William M., who had built on the claim that he had taken up a year or two before a one-room dugout, covered with dirt, and a sod stable covered with weeds and trash, the parents remaining in Garfield. The brothers attempted farming and for three years raised fair crops of Jerusalem corn and millet. They did not prove up on the claim, however, but the father held it and patented it, but he afterward moved to Garfield.

After leaving the claim Edward E. Frizell herded cattle through the summer, and worked as a section hand on the Santa Fe Railroad, his brothers going to New Mexico as employes of the Santa Fe Company. Edward E. continued herding and working on the section for three years, in the latter capacity receiving $1 a day for his work. Coming to Larned in 1880, Mr. Frizell was for six years a clerk in the hardware and implement house of Lowrey Brothers, beginning on a salary of $35 a month and ending with one of $85 a month. He then organized the Frizell Hardware Company and purchased the entire stock of Lowrey Brothers. The company was incorporated with a capital of $10,000, which was later increased to $35,000, the officers being Edward E. Frizell, president; W. O. Clark, secretary; and William M. Frizell, treasurer. For thirty years this company was actively engaged in business, and when it was sold in 1916 Mr. Frizell of this notice continued farming and stock raising.

Purchasing the Fort Larned military reservation of 3,200 acres in 1902 he obtained possession of all the government buildings, which he continued to maintain, and immediately began the task of breaking up and planting the land. He has farmed it as a grain and live stock proposition, and has now on his ranch a valuable lot of stock, including 250 Red Polled cattle, registered, upwards of 420 registered Galloways, a large number of Percheron thoroughbred horses and a fine bunch of Chester White hogs, which he maintains as a feeding and economic proposition. His grass land, and the summer pastures for his cattle, are on Upper Pawnee Creek in Hodgeman and Ness counties. Mr. Frizell sends all of his marketable stuff to Kansas City markets, his well-advertised registered stock sales being held periodically. On his Fort Larned ranch he has installed for irrigation purposes a pumping plant with a capacity of 4,000 gallons a minute, the water being taken from the Pawnee River. He also irrigates 600 acres of alfalfa and 400 acres of other crops.

Although not a politician in the accepted meaning of the term, Mr. Frizell votes the republican ticket in national matters, and has served wisely and well in several official capacities, for three years having been a member of the city council, for two years police judge, and in 1903 was elected mayor of time city. During the ten years that he occupied the mayor's chair the water works were purchased, the city sewer system was constructed, and several miles of sidewalks were built. That he has been one of the chief builders of the City of Larned is demonstrated by the Frizell Building at the corner of Fifth Street and Broadway, the Frizell Garage, the wholesale grocery house at the corner of Fifth and Topeka streets, and the houses that he has erected in the residential part of the city. He was again elected mayor in the spring of 1917, and since then the storm and sanitary sewers have been constructed and city paving laid. Mr. Frizell was appointed United States farm labor director for Kansas Jannary 1, 1918, and has enrolled, and distributed through his bureau more than 100,000 harvest hands over Kansas, has held meetings in 100 counties of the 105 and discussed labor conditions and formed organizations in those counties for the farmers mutual advantage, farm bureaus and similar organizations. Fraternally he is a Scottish Rite Mason, and a member of both the Wichita Consistory and the Isis Temple at Salina.

Mr. Frizell married in Pawnee County in 1887 L. Dora Dumont, a daughter of William Dumont, who came from New York State to Larned, Kansas, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits. Four sons have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Frizell, namely: Edward D., a graduate of the Larned High School and the Salina Business College, married Verne Reed, and is now managing the Fort Larned ranch; Walter, also a graduate of the Larned High School and the Kansas Agricultural College; George, who finished the high school and took a business course at the Salina Business College, enlisted in the Radio School of the navy December 15, 1917; and Harry D., the youngest son, is now attending school at Larned.

Pages 2434-2435.