NECROLOGY
FRANK C. HUBBARD
Near the close of the Civil War, on November 24, 1864, in the village
of New London, Indiana, to Woodson B. Hubbard and Anna Eliza Reece
Hubbard, members of the Society of Friends, was born a son named by
them Frank C. le attended a Quaker school at New London, and later
the public schools at Kokomo, Indiana, and while still a child accompanied
'his parents on their removal to Carthage, Missouri. He was a practical,
industrious youth with a wholesome appreciation of the value of time
and opportunity, and early decided to learn a trade; with this objective
he entered the office of a newspaper in Carthage where he acquired the
training and skill of a printer that was to become an important factor
in his future life.
IHe afterwards entered Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, where
'he defrayed part of his expenses by his own industry ; in this under-
taking his newspaper training stood him in good part when he started
the Drury Mirror, the college paper of that school. Outside of his school
hours he devoted his best energies to the operation of this paper so that
it not only aided him in a modest way financially in making his way
through the school, but on his graduation on June 16, 1887, the .Mirror
was so firmly established that it 'has continued in operation to the present
day.
The summer of his graduation he and his brothers and a classmate
came adventuring into the Indian Territory; attracted by the prodigal
expanse of grass billowing over the prairies, they came to Afton and
spent the summer cutting prairie grass, curing it, and shipping the hay
to market. After the hay season Frank went to waork on the Chieftain
at Vinita and later in the year when the Cherokee council was in session
at Tahlequah, he was sent by his paper to cover that source of news.
On one of his trips there on the stage from Gibson Station, he met Mr.
Joseph Sondtheimer, and asked him about the prospects for establishing
a newspaper at Muskogee. Mr. Sondheimer told Frank that Dr. Leo E.
Bennett who was running the Indian Journal at Eufaula wished to re-
move to Muskogee and needed a newspaper man to operate the paper he
hoped to establish there. He later introduced Frank to Dr. Bennett, and
there began a friendship of these three men that endured through their
lives and figured prominently in the development of Muskogee. Mr.
Sondheimer then sold to Bennett and Hubbard a tract of land on the
corner of Main Street and Okmulgee Avenue and they afterward pur-
chased a small strip adjoining, from Frederick B. Severs. On this they
erected a two story frame building to house their newspaper which be-
came known as the Phoenix Building. And on Thursday, February 23,
1888, appeared the first issue of the Muskogee Phoenix, bearing the names
of Leo E. Bennett as manager and Frank C. Hubbard as assistant. This
association continued for many years and the paper published by these