Frank W. Leavitt, of San Francisco, is a man well known in California, where he has spent the greater part of his life and where he has for several years been prominently identified with public affairs.

Mr. Leavitt, however, is a native of Indiana. He was born in Indianapolis, March 24, 1866, son of William and Emma (Bruce) Leavitt, early settlers of the Hoosier state. In the Leavitt family were two sons and one daughter. The latter is deceased. The son, James B. Leavitt, is manager for the Poc Press Publishing Company of Oakland, California. In 1870 the family left Indiana and moved to Oregon, where they remained until 1881, that year coming to California and locating in Oakland. Here the aged father died in 1903. He was by trade a carpenter, which he followed during the active years of his life.

Frank W. Leavitt may well be termed a self-made man, in the true sense of that word, for he left school at the age of ten years and went to work in a printing office, and from "printer's devil" he worked his way up to an honored seat among the lawmakers of the state. It was in the office of the Salem Stateman that he began work when a boy, and he remained in the employ of that paper until he came with the family to Oakland, in 1881, as above stated. He worked in printing offices in Oakland and San Francisco until 1890, as a type-setter, and that year he accepted a position in teh business department of the Oakland Tribune, and later was with the Oakland Times. From 1896 to 1900 he conducted a printing establishment of his own.

From his early boyhood Mr. Leavitt took and enthusiastic interest in political affairs and when he became a voter he gave his support to the Republican party. To this party he has ever been loyal. In 1896 he was elected a representative to the California state legislature, for one term of two years, at the end of which time he was elected to the state senate. At the close of his four years' term in the senate, he was in 1902 elected for another term.

Believing in reform measures for the voting system of the country, Mr. Leavitt, in the summer of 1903, accepted the appointment of general manager for the Pacific coast for the Columbia Voting Machine Company, of Indiana, and is now directing his energies in this direction.

Mr. Leavitt married, in 1891, Miss Bonnie Steele, a native of New York and a daughter of Mrs. E. J. Foster, of San Francisco. They have one son, Donald, seven years of age.

The Elks and the Eagles have in Mr. Leavitt a worthy member.

Source: History of the New California Its Resources and People, Volume II

The Lewis Publishing Company - 1905
Edited by Leigh H. Irvine