Frank Forrest Latta (1892–1983), was aCaliforniahistorian andethnographer of theYokuts people. He also wrote histories of the early European-American settlement of theSan Joaquin Valley.

Frank Forrest Latta was the son of Presbyterian minister Eli C. Latta and teacher Harmonia Campbell, born on September 18, 1892, inStanislaus County, nearOrestimba Creek. Latta lived most of his life in the San Joaquin Valley. His father and three older brothers had come to California fromArkansas during theCalifornia Gold Rush. His father and one brother remained in California, where they were joined by his mother. One brother returned to Arkansas, and the third wrote that he was returning to Arkansas with $8,000 in gold, but disappeared without a trace.

As a young boy Latta worked on several ranches in the San Joaquin Valley. He became interested in the stories of the early pioneers. In 1906, at the age of 14, he began interviewing people and gathering research regarding early pioneer life and farming in California. Latta also spent much time researching the Miller & Lux farming corporation and its foundersHenry Miller andCharles Lux.

Frank F. Latta became a teacher. He taught drafting and carpentry at high schools inGustine,Porterville,Shafter andBakersfield, California from 1915 to 1945.

In 1919, he married Jeanette Allen. They had four children together.^[1]

When not teaching, Latta was traveling in the San Joaquin Valley, interviewing European-American pioneers and Native Americans, gathering artifacts and articles, or writing at home. He published numerous articles in San Joaquin Valley newspapers during the 1920s and 1930s.^[2][dead link]

In the early 1920s, Latta began interviewing theYokuts and settlers who were acquainted with them. Among these wasThomas Jefferson Mayfield, ("Uncle Jeff"), the youngest son ofWilliam Mayfield, a settler from Texas who had developed a place on theKern River. Following the death of his mother, Uncle Jeff grew up in a Yokuts village. Latta wrote about his life, first as a series of newspaper articles, then as a book,Uncle Jeff's Story: A Tale of a San Joaquin Valley Pioneer and His Life with the Yokuts Indians (1929).

Latta's first work to focus on Native Americans in the San Joaquin Valley wasCalifornia Indian Folklore (1936). In it he described the culture of the many bands of the Yokuts.

Also in 1936 Latta publishedEl Camino Viejo á Los Angeles. He described the route and history ofEl Camino Viejo, the old Spanish road and the settlements along it on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, fromLos Angeles to what is nowOakland. Born near where that road crossedOrestimba Creek, Latta had traced the route on his trips through the valley; he had also taken photos of many of its features and landmarks. In 1938, Latta was honored with the presidency of the League of Western Writers.

Latta helped found theKern County Museum inBakersfield in 1941. He worked both as a curator and as its director from 1945 until 1956.

He also continued his research into the Yokuts, interviewing more than 200 elders and a number of settlers. From this information gathered for more than a half-century, Latta compiled and published theHandbook of Yokuts Indians (1949). The first edition was published in a limited issue of 500 copies, through the Kern County Museum. A revised and enlarged edition was published by Coyote Press in 1977.^[3]

Also in 1949, Latta published his bookBlack Gold In The Joaquin, the story of theoil industry in the San Joaquin Valley. He explored Native American use of the oil, to the discoveries and the development of the extraction technology from the mid–19th century to 1900.

In 1956 Latta moved to Santa Cruz, purchasing the Gazos Ranch in southernSan Mateo County. This was formerly known as the Steele Ranch and was located south ofPescadero nearGazos Creek. He and his wife Jean intended to retire there. They wanted to develop the ranch as a historical museum to house his extensive collection of items and artifacts he had collected.

He also intended to develop an 80-acre picnic and camping area, which would extend for a mile along the coast betweenAno Nuevo Island andPigeon Point. He expected to install a reconstruction of a California Indian village and a pioneer town.^[4] After going through official county procedures, Latta thought he was ready to begin this larger project, but it was delayed in the late 1950s.^[4]

He did establish the Rancho Gazos Historical Indian and Early Californian Museum.^{[citation needed]}

Late in his life, Latta published a series of books dealing with historic outlaws and other items.The Dalton Gang Days and theSaga of Rancho El Tejon were published in 1976.Tailholt Tales, an expanded version of Mayfield's memoir, was also published in that year., decades after his first efforts at correcting, commenting upon and filling out the original slim volume^[5] in the 1920s.Death Valley '49ers was first published in 1979, andJoaquín Murrieta and His Horse Gangs, published in 1980.

Latta died inSanta Cruz on May 8, 1983. He was buried atHills Ferry Cemetery inNewman, California, not far from where he was born.^[6]

• California Indian Folklore (1936)
• El Camino Viejo á Los Angeles (1936)
• Handbook of Yokuts Indians (1949)
• Black Gold in the Joaquin (1949)
• The Dalton Gang Days (1976)
• Saga of Rancho El Tejon (1976)
• Tailholt Tales (1976)
• Death Valley '49ers (1979)
• Joaquín Murrieta and His Horse Gangs (1980)

• Gerald Haslam (21 April 2013)."Historian preferred roughnecks' tales to bankers'".Bakersfield Californian. Retrieved23 November 2016.

• 20th-century American historians
• Historians of the United States
• Historians of California
• Oral historians
• American ethnographers
• 1892 births
• 1983 deaths
• Yokuts
• People from Stanislaus County, California
• People from Santa Cruz, California
• People from Pescadero, California
• 20th-century American anthropologists

• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from December 2021