Frank Etzel (b. 1879 - 1946)

Frank Etzel was born in Rochester, New York to parents Mary and Ludwig “Adolf” Etzel. Ludwig’s obituary in 1923 said that his son was in Alaska would not know that his father was dead until the spring.¹⁾ Frank Etzel was actually in the Yukon, and he had the trading post at Ross River in the 1920s.²⁾

Oil was discovered at Norman Wells in the summer of 1921 and that winter Tom Bee, Fred Guder, Frank Etzel, Joe Ladue, and others stampeded over the Selwyn and Mackenzie mountains, and mushed up the old Fort Norman trail to the oilfields in twenty-two days. They staked claims and returned to the Yukon and then to Edmonton by way of Skagway to file.³⁾ In 1922, Claude Tidd took a photo of a group of people standing in front of the trading post. Frank Etzel’s wife Teskot is in the photo with their baby boy Joe.⁴⁾ About 1946, Del Charles Van Gorder was moved to manage the Ross River post when trader Frank Etzel died.⁵⁾