Edwin A. Frost, the active, forceful head of four-fifths of the manufacturing business of the Frost-Trigg interests, is one of the best known types of the southern business man living in the southwest. In his temperament are mingled the old and the new -- the courtesy of the cavalier days and the directness of the modern business man blended into one. He is unobtrusive, but his unobtrusiveness is due to Mb habit of considering well every condition before giving expression to an opinion that could be viewed lightly. His is a broad life -- for his family first, for his country next, for himself last.

E. A. Frost is the son of E. W. Frost, of Texarkana, and was born in Miller county, Arkansas, October 25, 1869. In this comparatively new country he lived until he was 15 years old, attending a country school until he was 14 years old, and in the summer time working on the farm. During his fourteenth and sixteenth years he went to school at College Hill, Columbia county, Arkansas, where he prepared himself for college.

When E. W. Frost became interested in the Bodcaw Lumber Company young Edwin, eager to work, was put to work trucking lumber at "six bits" a day. A year of this work convinced him that if he wished to reach the top of the ladder about the foot of which he had been industriously shoving lumber "dollies" his chances of a sure footed climb would be much greater if he should begin where he left off and prosecute his education before he took any more degrees in lumbering.

E. W. Frost, senior; had anticipated that happening and encouraged his son to enter the Southwestern Baptist University; at Jackson, Tenn. Young Frost began his college career in 1887 and in 1890 was accorded the degree of bachelor of philosophy. After he left the university he took a course at Draughon’s Business College, of Texarkana, and the day after his graduation at that school became bookkeeper for C. T. Crowell, of Texarkana, who was interested in a partnership known then as the Black Lake Lumber Company, with a mill at Dubberly, La., a small settlement on the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific railway thirty miles east of Shreveport.

This position he resigned at the end of nine months and became bookkeeper for the Red River Lumber Company, and in less than a year was promoted to the position of shipping clerk. He ultimately became manager of the company, went with it on its removal to Frostville, Ark., left that active management and became the active spirit in the organization of the Lufkin Land & Lumber Company, remaining with it until the company was sold in 1905.

In November, 1902, Mr. Frost was elected secretary, treasurer and manager of the Noble Lumber Company, at Noble, La., and was elected president of that company in March, 1906.

Mr. Frost was active in the formation of the Union Saw Mill Company, at Huttig, Ark., was one of the originators of the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, at Mansfield, La., and in January, 1903, opened an office of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company at Shreveport, La:, to handle the business of that concern in the southwest.

E. A. Frost is president of the State National bank at Texarkana, Ark.; the State Savings & Trust Company, of Texarkana, Ark.; the Lufkin National bank, Lufkin, Tex.; the Noble Lumber Company, Noble, La.; the De Soto Land & Lumber Company, Mansfield, La.; the Mansfield Railway & Transportation Company, Mansfield, La.; the Black Lake Lumber Company, Shreveport, La. He is vice president, director and one of the three members of the voting trust of the Union Saw Mill Company, of Huttig, Ark.; a director and general manager of the Shreveport office of the Frost-Trigg Lumber Company, and a director in the Carter-Kelley Lumber Company, of Manning, Tex.; the Red River Lumber Company, of Frostville, Ark., and the Bank of De Soto, at Manfield, La., all these being his various and sundry marks of business distinction.