Frank Morrison. Many of the men who are now engaged in oil producing and contracting in the Mid-Continent field had their earliest training in the great fields of Pennsylvania, and in this class is found Frank Morrison, who had been engaged in business at Chanute since 1904. Mr. Morrison was an experienced man when he came to this locality, and here at once entered actively into operation, his activities having extended continually with the passing of the years. He is one of the men who are making this one of Kansas’ greatest industries.
Frank Morrison was born at Princeton, Pennsylvania, January 14, 1870, a member of a family that had resided in the Keystone State since the early colonial days. His grandfather, Joseph Morrison, was born in that state, in 1818, and passed his entire life as a miner and collier, dying at Princeton in 1892. Erban Morrison, the father of Frank Morrison, was born in 1847, in Pennsylvania, and on growing to manhood became the proprietor of a mercantile business, which he conducted in connection with engaging in mining. He remained at Princeton until the spring of 1912, when he came to Kansas and located at Chanute, but one year later removed to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he is now identified with the Texas Refining Company. Mr. Morrison is a democrat. He was married at Princeton, Pennsylvania, to Miss Mary E. Alford, who was born in that state, in 1848, and died at Princeton, in 1880. They had two children: Frank, of this notice; and Addie, who is the wife of Dr. M. D. Kottraba, a physician and surgeon of Butler, Pennsylvania.
After completing his primary education in the public schools of Princeton, Pennsylvania, Frank Morrison entered the Edinboro (Pennsylvania) State Normal School, and there spent 1½ years. In 1889 he received his introduction to the oil business at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a driller, and developed into a drilling contractor, his work subsequently taking him through the fields of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Illinois. In 1902 he came to Kansas and first located at Humboldt, but after two years’ residence there he came to Chanute, where he had since remained. Mr. Morrison resided in his own home at No. 318 North Forest Avenue, in addition to which he owned an eighty-acre farm twenty-seven miles west of Chanute, in Wilson County. He had continued to follow oil drilling as a contractor in the Mid-Continent field, and is also an extensive oil and gas producer, having gas productions three miles south of Chanute on Turkey Creek, and oil and gas productions ten miles northeast of the city. At this time he had nine producing oil and gas wells, but formerly had many more, as he had just sold seventeen wells south of the city. Mr. Morrison enjoys an excellent standing in business circles, and few men are better known in the industry here.
In politics Mr. Morrison is an independent democrat. He is a thirty-second degree and Shriner Mason, belonging to Humboldt Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Fort Scott Consistory No. 4; and Mirza Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Pittsburg, Kansas; and also holds membership in Chanute Lodge No. 806, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
Mr. Morrison was married in February, 1909, at Iola, Kansas, to Miss Ethel Jackson, daughter of T. H. and Alicia (Lupher) Jackson, residents of Chanute. Mr. Jackson is an engineer in the service of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are the parents of one daughter: Virginia, who was born February 15, 1910.