Frank H. Pings has been a resident of the state of Montana since 1886 and in all the years that have elapsed he has been actively identified with the contracting and building industry and has in that way added his full quota to the material growth and advancement of those places with which he has been variously connected. He is a native of the state of Wisconsin, born in Roxbury, Dane County that state, on December 15, 1864. He is the son of Cornelius and Theresa (Brandstatter) Pings. Both were natives of Germany. The father came to America at the age of sixteen, in the year 1848, and settled in Wisconsin, where he worked in the copper mines at first, but the greater part of his life was spent in farming in the fertile Wisconsin agricultural district. The mother came to America a young girl in company with friends of the family and they settled in Michigan. There she met Cornelius Pings and married him in 1861. She was born in 1831 and is still living. They became the parents of eleven children, Frank being the third born of that number.

Frank Pings was educated in the country schools of Dane County in Wisconsin to the age of sixteen. Following that year he was employed in the carpentering business and in a few years of constant application to the details of the work, he had mastered the trade, and from that time until 1898 he gave his full time and attention to the building and contracting business. In 1886 Mr. Pings removed to Montana and settled in Helena where he followed his regular business, remaining there until 1893. In that year he located in Marysville continuing for three years, after which he spent another year in Helena in the same business. In 1898 Mr. Pings went to Teton County where he homesteaded a tract of government land, located within four miles of Black Leaf post office, which he has since proved up. He and his brother, Anton Pings, own thirteen hundred acres of ranch land in this section of the country and are engaged in the cattle business, which is proving a most fortunate venture for them both. Frank Pings located in Conrad before that place boasted a single building. They pitched a tent and lived in it for a time, until building activities were commenced and it was they who built the first buildings in the town. They built the first bank building and the first store building the latter for F.D. Kingsbury and Company, merchants and they continued in contracting there until 1910 in which year Mr. Pings engaged in the lumber business, and he is the sole proprietor of the Pondera Lumber Company. He also deals in all kinds of farming machinery and conducts the largest business of its kind in the town of Conrad.

Mr. Pings has the distinction of being the first mayor of Conrad and has just completed his second term, being succeeded to the office on May 1, 1912, by Mr. R. Ferguson. He has also served three years as a trustee of the schools and much of the credit is due to him for the present modern building which houses the school children of the town.

On May 30,1889 Mr. Pings was united in marriage with Miss Anna Schwab of Helena, the daughter of Joseph and Katherine Schwab, who are natives of Michigan. Eight children have been born to them of which number six are living: Genevieve, Hilda, Cornelius, Joseph, Vincent and Francis.

source: History of Montana. Sanders, 1913