Delta County CO Archives Biographies.....Simmons, Frank March 1, 1855 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 9, 2006, 4:51 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     For a period of nearly thirty years Frank Simmons, an active, energetic and

progressive ranchman of Delta county, living and conducting a prosperous

business a mile and a half from Cory of the Grand river, has been a resident of

Colorado, having come into the state in 1876.  He has lived in various places in

the commonwealth and taken part in a number of its leading industries.  He has

therefore an extensive knowledge of its people and their occupations, and also a

good record of industry and citizenship to his credit.  The place of his

nativity was Jefferson county, Iowa, and he was born there on March 1, 1855. 

His father, William R. Simmons, a native of Tennessee, moved to Iowa at the age

of nineteen years, and there he met with and married Miss Salatha Crenshaw, who

was born in Illinois.  They were industrious and well-to-do farmers in Iowa,

where the father died, the mother now living.  In 1873, when he was eighteen

years old, and after receiving a common-school education, their son Frank left

his father’s home and started out in life for himself, going to Nevada where

during the next two years he occupied himself in prospecting, teaming and

ranching.  In 1875 he returned to Iowa, and in the spring of 1876 once more

turned his face toward the setting sun, joining the stampede to the Black Hills

where he mined until fall.  At that time he came to Colorado and took up his

residence in Douglas county.  During the first three years he worked in the

employ of a large cattle man, then engaged in freighting between Leadville and

Colorado Springs.  In the spring of 1880 he bought a team, and locating at

Leadville, passed three years teaming in and around that busy and prolific camp.

 In 1883 he moved to Grand Junction, the next year to Delta county, where he

improved and sold a ranch, and in the fall of 1884 went to Saguache county and

started an enterprise in the cattle industry which he carried on until 1889,

when he returned to Gunnison county, and after prospecting there four years,

located at Lake City, where he remained until 1901.  He then changed his

residence to Delta county once more, and in the spring of 1903 bought his

present home, a ranch of sixty acres, which he is steadily improving and getting

in order for raising vegetables on a large scale.  He has a portion of the land

in alfalfa and much of the rest is devoted to growing potatoes.  On November 27,

1899, he was married to Mrs. Lucinda Flanary, a native of Illinois and a widow

with one child dead and five living, one of whom has a home with Mr. Simmons. 

In national politics Mr. Simmons is a devoted member of the Democratic party,

but in local affairs his first concern is the general welfare and advancement of

the community, in which he takes an active and helpful interest.  He is

prosperous in business, enterprising in the development of the section of his

home, faithful in all the duties of citizenship and generally well respected by

his fellow men. 

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/delta/bios/simmons249gbs.txt

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