The Implausible Life of Frank Powell

In my survey of patent medicine companies in my part of the world I've had to leave this one to near the end.  

In many ways the industry was an over the top parody of American capitalism in the great age of expansion that came post Civil War.  Mass advertising, expansive promises....the whole Snake Oil Industry was predicated not so much on fooling the rubes as in getting them to admire the sheer audacity of it all.  And in that world David Frank Powell, aka White Beaver, was almost a parody of a parody.  He was way over the top even for his day.

The bare facts of his life are this.  Born in 1847 in Kentucky.  He moved around a bit in his early days, first to New York State, then to Chicago and Omaha where he clerked in drug stores.  During his time in Nebraska he spent some time on a ranch that his mother now owned.  It was there, in Lone Tree Nebraska, that he met Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok and other colorful characters.  He spent a little time as a civilian scout for the U.S. Army, later to claim all manner of fanciful adventures in this service.

In 1868 he sat for a competitive examination to attend medical school at the University of Louisville.  He won, despite having had no formal education to speak of.  He spent a couple of years there, working as a janitor to pay his expenses.  He graduated as Valedictorian and was offered a faculty post despite having been involved in a duel with one of his instructors.  He declined and took up a post as an Army Surgeon; not on the western frontier but at Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia.

After a few years practicing in Lanesboro, Minnesota he moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1881.  He was elected Mayor four times between 1885 and 1897.  He started a patent medicine company that traded on his dubious claim to have been spared death at the hands of hostile Indians after saving the life of a chief's daughter with his medical skills.  The supposed name White Beaver was either bestowed on him at that time or perhaps sometime in the mid 1870's for, one presumes, monetary considerations.

He wrote dime novels.  Songs were sung of his deeds.

Powell remained friends with "Buffalo Bill" Cody and seems - remember that very little about this man is ever certain - to have toured with the Wild West Shows.  Their friendship involved both heavy drinking and dubious real estate deals.

In 1906 Powell was on a train near El Paso, Texas.  He died of a heart attack, but instead of being buried in his adopted home town of La Crosse, arrangements were made to have his ashes scattered near Cody, Wyoming.  As the name suggests this was another of Buffalo Bill's real estate ventures.

His ashes were supposed to be scattered at a particularly scenic location called Red Butte, but as the story goes his friends got a bit carried away with their drinking to his memory, and when the mule carrying the mortal dust of David Frank Powell finally reached the planned site it was noted that a hole in the container and the bumpy ride had caused the remains to be scattered hither and thither, blown away in the winds of the now closed but still romantic Frontier.

The original marker, a simple cairn of stones, has been upgraded a bit in more recent times.