Butte County
Biographies
FRANK E. STAFFORD
FRANK E. STAFFORD.--The proprietor of the Lone Pine Dairy, Frank E. Stafford, has made a success of his undertaking by hard work and close application to the details of his business. He was born in Hillsdale, Mich., April 21, 1871, and is the second oldest of five children born to Charles and Mary (Pugh) Stafford. The father served in Company B, First Michigan Sharpshooters for two and a half years in the Civil War, after which he engaged in farming until his death.
Frank E. Stafford was reared on the home farm, and received his education in the public schools. When fourteen years of age he began working on his own account, drifting into the Northern Peninsula, where he followed lumbering until 1891. Next we find him in Ohio, working as a painter in different parts of the state. Among the places where he worked were Columbus, Youngstown, Findlay, and Cleveland. In 1908 he came to Los Angeles, Cal. The same year he located in Chico, engaging in contracting and painting for three years. During the last of these three years, he began in the dairy business in a small way, residing on Humboldt Avenue. He had purchased one cow, and his daughter Florence, a schoolgirl, began by delivering two quarts of milk a day, and soon sold all the milk, which necessitated his purchasing a second cow for the use of the family; but this milk was also sold, and he purchased a third cow. His trade increased so that he determined to quit the painting business and devote his time to the dairy business. Leasing a twenty-acre ranch on the corner of Crouch and Edgar Avenues, he named it the Long Pine Dairy. A delivery wagon took the place of the old buggy used for serving his customers. His herd increased, and he met with success. In 1917 he purchased a twenty-acre ranch on Rodeo Avenue, which he immediately improved with sanitary barns and dairy house, with modern methods for treating, cooling, and bottling the milk. He built a Simplex silo with a capacity of fifty-four tons, and he has demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the best and most profitable results can be had by feeding the dairy herd from his silo. He has a well-selected herd of eighteen milk cows, and now uses an auto delivery for serving his customers in Chico.
Mr. Stafford has been twice married. The first time he was married to Winnefred Irven, a native of England, who came to Ohio as a missionary. She died at Dayton, Ohio, leaving him a little daughter, Florence, now Mrs. Rattenhauser, who makes her home in Oakland. His present wife was in maidenhood, Ethel Barker, born at Leadville, Colo., whose father was a pioneer mining man of Leadville, where Mrs. Stafford was reared and educated. She is a woman of much business ability and an able helpmate to her husband; and he gives her no small amount of credit for their success in business.
Transcribed by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C.
Mansfield, Pages 1323-1324, Historic Record Co, Los
Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2009 Sharon Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies