Drake, Elias Franklin, 1813-1892

Elias Franklin Drake was a railroad president and businessman in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was born in Ohio, where he worked for a bank and as a lawyer, and served on the Ohio legislature for three terms. He moved to Minnesota in 1862, and was made president of the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad in 1864. He was engaged in a variety of enterprises, including flour mills, lumbering, stone quarries, coal mines, sugar mills, farming, horse breeding, and real estate. Active in Republican politics, he served as a delegate to the 1864 and 1880 Republican National Conventions, and as a member of the Minnesota State Senate in 1873.