The History of West Virginia, Old and New
and West Virginia Biography
Volume II Biographical, Page 546-548
The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York
Published 1923 (Public Domain)
Frank Stewart Martin came into the Guyan Valley soon after the first railroad was built, and has been one of the men of real enterprise and civic leadership at Logan, where he is proprietor of the Logan Bottling Company. This business was established in 1905 when the town was new and when the development of the valley was just getting under way.
Mr. Martin was born at Paintsville, Johnson County, Kentucky, February 1, 1872. His parents. Rev. John and Julia (Gilkerson) Martin, were natives of Boyd County. Kentucky, and his father died in 1919, at the age of seventy-nine, and his mother in 1913, at the age of sixty-seven. Rev. John Martin for many years was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was a pastor in the West Virginia conference and also in East Kentucky. In this state he had charge of work in Huntington, Charleston and Point Pleasant, and for a number of years was presiding elder of the Big Sandy District. He was an intimate friend of the well known business man and capitalist of Eastern Kentucky, the late John C. C. Mayo, and he preached at Mr. Mayo’s funeral. Rev. Mr. Martin in his earlier days was a teacher. Earnest, sincere and eloquent, he numbered his friends by the thousand. He and his wife had eight children. The oldest son is H. F. Martin, formerly a superintendent on the Northern Pacific Railroad and now in business as a contractor of heavy construction at New Westminster, British Columbia. Another son, Forrest, is a traveling salesman. Warren lives in Philadelphia. Robert is in the electrical supplies business. Edward is with the Nickle Plate Plant at Huntington. A daughter is the wife of Dr. Thomas Dugan, a dentist at Huntington.
Frank Stewart Martin spent his boyhood in the several places where his father was pastor, and acquired his education somewhat disjointedly as a consequence. Later he took a business course in the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York. At the age of twenty he went to the Northwest, and for two years was in the State of Washington, an employee under his brother, then a superintendent of the Northern Pacific Railroad. After returning East Mr. Martin followed various business lines, and was in the laundry business at Huntington.
He left that city, attracted by the great promise of the new Town of Logan, and in 1905 established the first laundry here. He continued the operation of that business for several years, until he sold out, and it is now conducted as the Aracoma Laundry Company. In the same year that he established his laundry he engaged in the bottling business, his being the first plant at the time in the valley. He started both enterprises on a small scale and kept them going apace with the development of the valley. In 1910 his present bottling plant was erected, and has since been increased. He bottles and distributes soft drinks all up and down the valley. For twelve years he has been manufacturer and distributor over this territory of coca-cola, and manufactures and distributes an extensive line of other widely advertised soft drinks. One feature of his plant is a deep well of the very purest water, which is of course an important ingredient of his products.
Mr. Martin served three terms as a member of the city council of Logan, has been vice president of the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Men’s Association, and is interested in every plan for the advancement and betterment of the community. He married in 1910 Miss Helen Vorhees, a native of Portsmouth, Ohio. Mr. Martin is a trustee of the Methodist Church, is a member of the Masonic Lodge and Chapter of Logan, the Knight Templar Commandery and Beni-Kedem Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charleston, and also belongs to the thirty-second degree, Scottish Kite Consistory. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Elks, and is a democratic voter.
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