Early Life and Education
Frank Phillips was born in Scotia, Nebraska where his parents Lucinda and Lewis Franklin Phillips, the county's first magistrate, had a farm. The infant Frank was still in his crib in July 1874, when swarms of grasshoppers descended on Nebraska, cutting a 100-mile (160 km) by 300-mile (480 km) swath and devastating crops throughout the area. The devastation eventually extended to include Greeley County, where the Phillips farm was. The Phillips quickly decided to pack up, and they moved the family to a small farm in rural southwest Iowa. Frank had ten siblings, including two brothers with whom he later went into business.
A few years later, the Phillips boy began his first entrepreneurial venture, hiring out to area farmers to dig potatoes for 10 cents a day (after completing his chores at home). At age 14, Phillips persuaded a barber in nearby Creston, Iowa, to take him on as an apprentice. Ten years later, Phillips owned all three barber shops in Creston. One of his barber shops was in the basement of a bank in Creston.
Read more about this topic: Frank Phillips (oil Industrialist)
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