Frank W. Rollins

Who was Frank W. Rollins?

Frank West Rollins was an American lawyer, banker, and Republican politician from Concord, New Hampshire. His father, Edward H. Rollins, had represented New Hampshire in the United States Senate. Frank served New Hampshire in the state's Senate and as Governor. Rollins and others founded the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests in 1901, a private organization to protect the forests now known as the "Forest Society." A shelter was built in his honor at Lost River in Kinsman Notch, New Hampshire in 1912, and remains there. As Governor of New Hampshire, he invented and founded "Old Home Week" intended to remind New Hampshiremen to return to their hometowns. This was in response to the large numbers of people moving to the Midwest because of the slow economy in the northeast at the time. He and his father started the investment banking firm of E.H. Rollins and Sons, which became one of the largest in the country by the crash of 1929. After the crash, it was very diminished and finally closed in the 1940s. New research shows that Rollins and Senator John Weeks collaborated on the founding of the National Forest Act of 1911, signed by the President William Howard Taft.