Benjamin Franklin Bragg

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Benjamin Franklin Bragg (February 21, 1819 – March 29, 1915) was an American doctor, lawyer, and violinist who was born in Arkansas. He later lived in California, where census records show him as a practicing physician in the 1870 and 1880 censuses. By the late 1870s he had moved to Los Angeles, where he ran a medical practice and became involved in other pursuits, including horse racing and livestock trading.

Bragg married Alice Louella Slosson around 1884. They had nine children, beginning with two sons who died in infancy and then seven daughters. The family lived in Los Angeles, with Bragg listed at 132 East Pico Street in the 1880s; they sold that property in 1896.

Bragg faced several legal challenges. In 1881, he was accused of practicing medicine without a certificate but was found not guilty. In 1892 he was described in newspapers in unflattering terms and was involved in a major court case, People v. Bragg, along with Esperanza B. De Avila, for falsifying a property deed. Bragg was found guilty and sentenced to five years in San Quentin, but he was pardoned a year later after new evidence emerged.

Bragg is also connected to a famous but unverified mining tale in Bear Canyon, known as the Dr. B. F. Bragg Mine. The story claims that in the 1870s Bragg mined a rich vein after meeting a Native American guide and an outlaw named Bronco Charlie Riley, faced water problems, and that a deadly dispute followed. Supposedly, four miners were murdered and the mine was concealed. However, there is no solid historical evidence for the mine’s existence or the events, and many consider the tale to be folklore rather than fact.

Bragg did not reopen the mine due to illness (tuberculosis) and died in Los Angeles in 1915 at age 96. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. His wife Alice died in 1932 and is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.