FRANK ELSWORTH TRASK

Los Angeles County

Biographies

FRANK ELSWORTH TRASK

TRASK, FRANK ELLSWORTH, Consulting Engineer, Los Angeles, California, was born at Industry, Maine, July 26, 1863, the son of Nathaniel Trask and Betsy Helen (Wills) Trask. He has been twice married, his first wife, Maude R. Smith, whom he married at Escondido, California, December 20, 1885, having died in February 1908. She bore him three sons, Harlan, Olin and Elwood. Mr. Trask took for his second wife Carlotta Thornton, the wedding ceremony being performed at Los Angeles, July 1, 1909.

Mr. Trask received his early training in the public schools of Bethel, Maine, and Gould’s Academy of that place. He entered the University of Maine in 1883 and was graduated in 1887 with the degree of Bachelor of Civil Engineering. Three years later his college conferred upon him the Master’s Degree. Mr. Trask, who is today considered one of the greatest civil engineers in the West and an authority on irrigation matters, has been in active service since his college days. During the last two years of his course he was engaged on hydrographic surveys of the Penobscot River under Professor Hamlin and F. P. Stearns, and from August to December, 1887, the year of his graduation, was assistant to H. E. Stoddard, a civil engineer of Pomona, California, on townsite work in the southern part of that State. Since that time he has been engaged in various engineering enterprises in California which have given him rank with the leaders of his profession.

In the beginning of the year 1888 he became Chief Engineer for the Ontario Land & Improvement Company and the San Antonio Water Company, and in this capacity had charge of various important operations. For the latter company he designed and constructed extensions to the irrigation systems which it operated and for the former constructed eight miles of street railway.

About this time Mr. Trask inaugurated a system of underground tunnels for water development, and by this method added largely to the water supply of the town and colony of Ontario, and other sections of California.

In 1889, Mr. Trask was engaged in a number of important works, among them the subdivision of fourteen hundred acres for the Pasadena Rincon Land & Water Company, with surveys for irrigating the tract. Also, he made extensive surveys in Mill Creek Canyon and designed a power plant for the Mentone Sandstone Company in the same year.

The year 1890 Mr. Trask served as Consulting Engineer for the Escondido Irrigation District, designing its noted “Rock-fill” dam, and in 1891 he was Consulting Engineer to the Sycamore Water Development Company on tunnel work, also being engaged in making surveys for an irrigation system in the Pomona Orange Belt irrigation District.

During 1894 Mr. Trask made a topographic survey of San Antonio Canyon in California, embracing twenty-four square miles and upon the conclusion of this task was chosen Consulting Engineer to the City of Pomona to report upon the most available source of water supply. He was also engaged in general practice, his commissions including that of Consulting Engineer to the San Antonio Water Company, the Anita Mining & Milling Company of Sonora, Mexico, and various others.

In 1900, Mr. Trask closed his offices in Ontario, where he had made headquarters for about thirteen years, and removed to Los Angeles, where he has since been engaged in practice. In moving he retained his principal clients and in the years that have intervened has added many more to them, including the Water Users’ Association of San Gabriel Valley and a large Eastern clientele for whom he has made various investigations and reports of water development and power projects on the Pacific Coast.

Mr. Trask in 1911 constructed the Ontario water system at a cost of $200,000 and was chosen to make a report on a like system for the city of Redlands, California, to build which the city voted $600,000 bonds.

Those summarize in brief the activities of Mr. Trask, but fail to show adequately the importance of his work. His position as an irrigation expert has caused him to be employed in various litigations and he is generally regarded as one of the chief factors in the development of water in Southern California. Mr. Trask has contributed frequently to engineering journals articles dealing with the water question, and one of them , entitled “Water Conservation in Southern California.” printed in the “Rural Californian” in June, 1903, has come to be regarded as an authority, the demand for this paper exhausting two special issues. In it Mr. Trask discussed the entire question of irrigation from scientific and practical standpoints and pointed out the defects of the various methods of procuring water for agricultural and other purposes. In general, he made a brief for the conservation of water resources in the great Southern California district and also outlined a method for doing this, his plan providing for a diversion of the waters and the creation of new water supplies. This system has benn (sic) largely adopted and has resulted in a general improvement of the lands and products of the farms.

Mr. Trask is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, also belongs to the Architects and Engineers’ Association of Los Angeles, Masonic fraternity and the Jonathan Club.

Transcribed 7-01-08 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 91, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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