Born in Darke County, Ohio, May 23, 1841, he was one of the eight children, of Michael and Susan (Moore) Stahl. His paternal grandfather was a native of Germany. Michael Stahl was both a cooper and shoemaker, and as a youth Frank learned those trades from his father. In the decades of the '40s and '50s when he was growing up in Western Ohio there was no real public school system in that state. Most schools were maintained on the subscription plan, each family paying the tuition of those of its children who attended, and the time was usually only three months a year. Frank Stahl attended such a school in a log cabin.
Starting from Ohio, he went by railroad as far as Jefferson City, Missouri, which was then the terminus of the old Missouri Pacific Railroad, and thence by steamboat up the Missouri to Kansas City. Leaving Kansas City, or rather Westport Landing, since Kansas City as a town did not then exist, he started West on foot. After many discouraging circumstances he landed in March, 1857, near Auburn on Six Mile Creek. He did not have a cent to his name. His first employer was Robert Simmerwell, who was a missionary among the Pottawattamie Indians. He worked on Mr. Simmerwell's farm, and later found employment in what was probably the first mill in Kansas, located at Auburn. This mill operated its machinery for the sawing of lumber during the day, and at night the burrs were turning to grind corn. It was one of the great institutions of a new country. Both whites and Indians came for a distance of a 100 miles to get grain ground. In this mill Frank Stahl worked for about two years. In March, 1859, his parents, not wishing to be separated from their enterprising young son, followed him to Kansas. They located about ten miles southwest of Topeka, where his father bought a tract of land that had ever since been owned by some member of the Stahl family.
Led on by the spirit of adventure, in June, 1860, Frank Stahl crossed the plains on foot to Denver. Denver was at that time a little city composed almost entirely of adobe houses. He had some experiences as a miner at Central City and Blackhawk, and was doing quite well there when he was induced to go on to Arizona. That proved a fruitless quest, and he returned to Colorado to be confronted with the disastrous news that his partner, a reputed minister of the gospel, had decamped with everything that could be converted into money. This partner, as was afterwards learned, was hanged by vigilantes for stealing mules. Thus he was left at Denver without a dollar.
While there he learned that war had started between the North and South, and during the winter of 1861-62 he walked back across the plains to his Kansas home, with the intention of enlisting. However, about that time there occurred a lull in the fighting, and many thought that the war was over. Instead of enlisting at that time Mr. Stahl took a commission to drive six yoke of oxen over the old Santa Fe trail to New Mexico. His team carried a wagon loaded with 6,500 pounds of revolvers and ammunition. At that time, more than half a century ago, the old Santa Fe trail was still in its glory as one of the chief overland trunk lines for transportation and traffic between the Middle West and the Southwest. A thousand tales of romance and adventure have their scenes along that trail, and the trip which Mr. Stahl made over the highway in 1862 was one of the most memorable events of his entire career. Besides the hardships and the many incidents connected with such a journey, spice was added to nearly each day's progress by the necessity of being on constant guard against hostile Indians. Again and again the party had narrow escapes from the red men.
In 1869 Mr. Stahl married Jennie T. Dickson, A brief record of the children is as follows: Alexander Michael, who lived in California; Effie May, Mrs. James Ely, of Oklahoma; Edgar Marion, of Topeka; Lloyd Lincoln and Lewis Garfield, twins, the former a farmer near Burlingame and the latter engaged in the lumber business at Wakarusa; Eva Irene, wife of Mr. Meredith of Eskridge; Clare W., a physician at Burlingame; and Leon Frank, a farmer at Shawnee County.
