Francis Marion Blake
15 Mar 1858 - 20 Jan 1939
diedArizona, USA
bornLaSalle County, Illinois, USA
SchooltblData
BiographyCame to Tempe in 1881.Farmer.
His parents moved from Illinois to Kansas in 1874, where he worked building the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. He came to Arizona in 1881 with the railroad and followed it to Ash Fork. In the fall of 1881, he came to Tempe and worked for Gabe Cosner and others, and in the following year, he rented a farm. In 1884, he joined in an unsuccessful effort with George Powers to dam the Gila River at Gila Bend. He spent the next ten or twelve years freighting between Prescott and Phoenix, and had a farm in Kirkland and Peoples Valley. The completion of the railroad from Prescott to Phoenix, and his failing vision, sent him back to Tempe.In 1921 , 'lived at R 1 , in 1923, -'26, -'29 on R 2, Box 87A. . For thirty-five years he lived on a ranch southeast of Tempe. He retired at the home of his daughter in 1930 and spent the last eight years of his life in Florence.
Lived on Creamery Road (E. 8th Street) in 1914.
OSB 74
BIO-Blake
BIO-Cosner
BIO-Holmesley
Old Settlers Collection, THM
Federal census, 1880, 1900
Double Butte Cemetery, Tempe
Maricopa County Great Register, 1882
Tempe CD, 1913-1918, '21, '23, -'26, -'29
Person TypeIndividual
