Frank Forrest Latta
Frank Forrest Latta (1892–1983) was a California historian and ethnographer who studied the Yokuts people and wrote about early European-American settlement in the San Joaquin Valley.
Latta was born on September 18, 1892, in Stanislaus County near Orestimba Creek. He was the son of Eli C. Latta, a Presbyterian minister, and Harmonia Campbell. He spent most of his life in the San Joaquin Valley. As a boy he worked on ranches and became interested in the stories of California’s early pioneers. At age 14, he began interviewing people and gathering information about pioneer life and farming.
From 1915 to 1945, Latta taught drafting and carpentry at high schools in Gustine, Porterville, Shafter, and Bakersfield. He married Jeanette Allen in 1919, and they had four children. When not teaching, he traveled the valley, interviewing pioneers and Yokuts people, collecting artifacts, and writing.
In the early 1920s Latta started talking with Yokuts and settlers who knew them, including Thomas Jefferson Mayfield, the son of a settler who had lived with the Yokuts. Latta’s first work about Native Americans in the valley appeared as newspaper articles and later as Uncle Jeff’s Story (1929), about Mayfield’s life with the Yokuts.
Latta published California Indian Folklore (1936), describing Yokuts culture, and El Camino Viejo á Los Angeles (1936), about the old Spanish road along the valley’s west side. He traced the route on his travels and took many photos of landmarks.
In 1949 Latta published the Handbook of Yokuts Indians (the first edition was 500 copies). A revised edition appeared in 1977. Also in 1949 he wrote Black Gold In The Joaquin, about the valley’s oil industry and Native American uses of oil.
Latta’s participation in professional life grew: he became president of the League of Western Writers in 1938. He helped found the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield in 1941 and served as its curator and then director from 1945 to 1956. He interviewed more than 200 Yokuts elders and many settlers, building a large collection of artifacts for his research.
In 1956 Latta moved to Santa Cruz and bought the Gazos Ranch in southern San Mateo County with plans to turn it into a historical museum and a large coastal recreation area. He did establish the Rancho Gazos Historical Indian and Early Californian Museum, though plans for the full project were delayed.
Later in life Latta published several books about historic outlaws and other topics. These included Dalton Gang Days and the Saga of Rancho El Tejon (1976), Tailholt Tales (an expanded edition of Mayfield’s memoir, 1976), Death Valley ’49ers (1979), and Joaquín Murrieta and His Horse Gangs (1980).
Frank Forrest Latta died on May 8, 1983, in Santa Cruz. He was buried at Hills Ferry Cemetery in Newman, California, not far from his birthplace.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 22:18 (CET).