Lewis Franklin Frank Childress was a Tri-State mining operator, Joplin resident, and namesake of the Frank Childress House and later Childress Scout Reservation.
Known forLewis Franklin Frank Childress was a Tri-State mining operator, Joplin resident, and namesake of the Frank Childress House and later Childress Scout Reservation.
Lewis Franklin Childress, often called Frank Childress, was born near Galena, Kansas, on November 1, 1875, and became a major lead and zinc mining operator in the Tri-State district. Political Graveyard identifies him as a Republican delegate to the 1932 Republican National Convention from Missouri and records his death in Joplin on August 1, 1944.
Childress is closely tied to Murphysburg through the Frank Childress House at 302 South Sergeant Avenue. Historic Murphysburg's house history describes him as a mining businessman whose legacy also lived on through the Frank Childress Boy Scout Reservation. The Drive folder includes a Joplin Globe obituary clipping describing his mining career, including work in Galena, Oronogo, Picher, and the larger Oklahoma-Kansas-Missouri field.
For the People directory, Childress should be framed as both an industrial figure and a neighborhood resident: part of the mining wealth that shaped Joplin's built environment and civic landscape.