Los
Angeles County
Biographies
FRANK SHEARER
The greatest park system in the
United States has been developed under the direction of Frank Shearer,
superintendent of parks in Los Angeles since 1910. Mr. Shearer is a native of Aberdeen,
Scotland, born September 3, 1875, and a son of Frank and Margaret Shearer. He attended the public schools of Cairnbanna in Aberdeen County from 1880 until 1888 and
subsequently worked on a farm for two years.
Thereafter he spent five years in the service of the Duke of Richmond
and Gordon, being indentured as an apprentice for three years to study
practical gardening and then being placed in charge of the conservatories. In 1896 he entered the Heriot Watt College of
Edinburgh, where he studied for two years.
He also became a student at the Whiteley
Business College of Edinburgh and the same year secured a scholarship from the
British government which enabled him to enter of College of Forestry and
Engineering of the University of Edinburgh.
While attending that institution he continued his business course during
the years 1896, 1897 and 1898. The
scholarship entitled him to an exceptionally valuable education. Part of the course was practical work
connected with the reconstruction and remodeling of the Royal Botanical Gardens
and the rearranging of the plants in the various departments. Mr. Shearer also helped rearrange the herbaceous
plant department, the Alpine plant department, the arboretum and the economic
plant collection under glass. He
graduated with a certificate of distinction from the University of Edinburgh in
1898. For one year he worked on the Coltness estate in Wishaw, Scotland. On the completion of his university course he
was appointed overseer in charge of all construction and outdoor worked
connected with the Royal Botanical Gardens and Arboretum at Edinburgh, and in
addition was made custodian of the government meteorological station. While in
Scotland, he served three years as a volunteer with the British Army.
At the age of twenty-six years Mr.
Shearer left the employ of the British government and came to the United
States. He was at once employed in the
work of landscaping on the Tilden estate on the Hudson. While there he accepted a position as
landscape engineer on the Castle Gould estate on Long Island, the property of
Howard Gould. One year later he took a
three-year contract to lay out and construct the
private estates belonging to members of the Carnegie family on Cumberland
Island, Florida. The land was
transformed into a tropic park, intersected with boulevards, and the work required
the labor of several hundred men for three years. On the expiration of that period Mr. Shearer
was appointed chief engineer of the Shenandoah Land & Irrigation Company of
southwestern Colorado, for which he made extensive surveys. In 1906 he became associated with the Denver
parks department as construction engineer on parks, extensions and boulevards. He built Denver’s first boulevard and later
was made superintendent of parks in the Highland division. In 1908 he came to Los Angeles, California,
with the purpose of growing citrus fruit in the Cahuenga
valley and later took up the work of his profession, being engaged on several
of the estates of Hollywood. He
attracted the attention of the Los Angeles city park
department, which offered him the position of landscape engineer in 1910, and
later in the same year he was made superintendent of parks of the city. In this position, which he has filled so
acceptably to the present time, Mr. Shearer found his greatest
opportunity. Los Angeles had hardly a
nucleus of a park system when he began his work and now boasts the greatest
park system in the entire country.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 511-512, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN
NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPHIES