MEDICAL PIONEER DR. FRANK GOFORTH

by Farley Wuth, Curator,
Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village
Copyright, Pincher Creek & District Historical Society

In 1892 Dr. Frank Goforth bought out Sergeant Mayor Bray, an ex-member of the Northwest Mounted Police, whose property was located on the north side of the Creek, near the present Cook (Pickard) place. Nearby, the popular creek crossing which accessed the Macleod Trail between Pincher Creek and Fort Macleod was named after him.

Goforth was well respected as a local rancher in addition to being a doctor.

Franklin Goforth was born on August 23th, 1836 in Ontario. His family ancestry was French. His wife Mary A. was nearly a dozen years his junior, having been born on January 25th, 1848. Her birthplace was in England. It is believed that the couple met and resided in England during the 1880s as all three of their children were born there. The eldest, a daughter named Esther F. was born, was born on July 29th, 1881. Their son Joseph Frank, who often went by his middle name, most likely was born on January 7, 1884. Mary L., who was their youngest child, was born on September 11th, 1887.

Siblings Frank and Mary attended school in the Pincher Creek area, first as two of the non-native students with the Victoria Jubilee School. Established in the early 1890s by the Church of England, it later went by the name of St. Cyprian’s. By 1898 the two were enrolled in the Pincher Creek Public School where they had their class photo taken on the wooden Pincher Creek bridge constructed earlier that year. One of the two Goforth daughters married George Walters, an early employee of the old Rocky Mountain Echo when it was owned by E. T. Saunders.