Frank F. McDonald
Mayor of Evansville, Indiana
1960 - 1972

      Frank F. McDonald, mayor of Evansville since 1960, was born in Howell on December 30, 1912, the son of a railroad brakeman.

      After he graduated from Reitz High School, he was a pre-medical student at Evansville College for three and one-half years. Between high school and college, he managed an H. A. Woods Drug Store from 1930 to 1935, and then traveled for a year for a manufacturer of surgical and medical supplies.

      He became a relief investigator for the Pigeon Township trustee, and in 1940 was chief deputy sheriff until he entered the U.S. Army in March 1943. He served as special agent in charge of army and criminal intelligence in the San Francisco Port of Embarkation area, being discharged after three years of service.

      Entering the field of politics he was named secretary of the Democratic Good Government Club, and in 1947 served as executive secretary of the city plan commission in the Dress administration. During the ten years, 1949 to 1958 inclusive, that he served as sheriff, Vanderburgh County was awarded a plaque for having the Number One Sheriff's Department in Indiana.

      Now in his second term as mayor, Evansville has emerged from its economic decadence of the late nineteen-fifties to its present booming prosperity. Unemployment has been lowered, marginal urban areas have been annexed, expressways have been and are being constructed, police protection and fire fighting have been improved, street widening is in progress, parks are being developed, the municipal airport is expanding for jet-craft operation - all of these projects, just to name a few, have been part of the Frank McDonald administration's sedulous program for the growth of Evansville.

      In the fall of 1961 he was chosen by the federal department of state as one of twenty-two mayors of the United States to make a good will trip to Berlin, a government-sponsored event proposed by the late President Kennedy. He is a board member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and president of the Indiana Municipal League.

      Mr. McDonald married the former Cloedeen Duvall on July 22, 1939 and they are the parents of one child, a son, Frank F. II, who is fourteen years old. They reside at 1610 Adams Avenue and are in religious faith affiliated with the Methodist Church.

      He is an enthusiastic booster of all Evansville athletic sports events, and enjoys playing golf when he has an opportunity, but foremost of all his activity is his intense and assiduous interest in his goal for good government.