Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 840
FRANK F. LATTA

Magnolia township boasts of no more enterprising citizen than Frank F. LATTA, who started out on his own resources and now is one of the most substantial farmers of his township. He taught school in his younger days, but since 1900 has been engaged in farming and stock raising. He has been active in the civic life of Magnolia township, and has held several official positions with credit to himself and satisfaction to his fellow citizens. Few farmers in the county have had more marked success in stock raising than Mr. LATTA, while as a general farmer he has few equals in the county. Frank F. LATTA, the son of James M. and Anna Jane (KENDALL) LATTA, was born January 24, 1875, in Calhoun township, Harrison county, Iowa. Six children were born to his parents, William W., James H., John C., Walter L., Frank F., and Anna P., the wife of E. B. Hughes, a farmer of this county. All of the sons are farmers of Harrison county.

James M. LATTA was born about 1834 in Pennsylvania. Before the opening of the Civil War he came west, located in Iowa, and enlisted for service in the Union army in an Iowa regiment at Council Bluffs. He was a member of Company B, Twenty-ninth Regiment Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and after the close of the was he came to Harrison county and operated a saw-mill in Clay township until about 1874. He then bought a farm and engaged in agricultural pursuits until 1879, in which year he went to Colorado and engaged in the saw mill business. He remained in that state a few years and then returned to Harrison county and retired from active work about 1904. He now makes his home in the county with his children. His wife was born in Illinois and died on March 12, 1898, on the home farm in Calhoun township.

Frank F. LATTA was educated in the country schools of his county, and later graduated from the high school at Logan in 1895. He then farmed for a time, after which he began teaching school in Calhoun township at District No. 4. He remained in the teaching profession until about 1900. In that year he bought forty acres of land in Calhoun township, and remained at home, where he farmed his forty acres in addition to his father's farm. In 1902 he and his father bought two hundred and two and one-half acres of land in Magnolia township, where Mr. LATTA has since been living. He has made extensive improvements and was the first man in Magnolia township to build a cement sidewalk upon his farm. He built a large barn the first year he went on the farm, which was totally destroyed by fire two years later. He was not discourage, but at once made preparations to build a larger and more commodious structure, which he eventually erected at a cost of twenty-five hundred dollars. This, together with the Calhoun farm, has about sixty acres of natural timber. Most of the lumber in the barn came from his own farm. This barn is fifty-two by sixty feet in size and has a cement basement. He built a modern sanitary chicken house of cement, which is a model of convenience, and has excited no small comment. Last year he had one hundred and fifty acres of corn which averaged better than seventy bushels to the acre, a yield much better than the average through the county. He feeds most of his grain to hogs and cattle, and at one time made the largest shipment of hogs that ever went out of the county. They averaged the heaviest of any Harrison county hogs which were received in the Chicago stockyards. He now owns three hundred acres of land in Harrison county, and remembers when he started in to farm with an old mule and one decrepit horse. He even had to borrow money to buy harness for this ill-assorted team, but with grim determination to succeed he forged ahead and his present prosperity is the result.

Mr. LATTA is a shareholder of the Magnolia Bank, and also of the Magnolia Creamery Company. He takes an active part in Republican politics, and is one of his party's leaders in local affairs. In 1902 he was elected clerk of his township and has held this office for four terms since that time. He was assessor for three years, and was elected for two years more last fall, and is now secretary of the Magnolia consolidated school, one of the best rural schools of the county. His fraternal affiliations are with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. LATTA is essentially one of those men who stand for progress, and his career as a teacher, farmer and public official is such as to stamp him as one of the real representative men of his county.

Return to 1915 Biographical L Surnames Index

Back to 1915 Biographies Index