Dolph Frantz

Dolph Griffin Frantz (The Shreveport Journal 1908-1953)
Born	September 6, 1886 Brandon, Rankin County Mississippi, USA Primarily a resident of Shreveport, Louisiana
Died	July 6, 1953 (aged 66)
Political Party	Democrat
Spouse	(1) Elda Verne Weaver Frantz (married 1910-1934, her death) (2) Dell Weaver Lawhorne Frantz (married 1935)
Religion	Presbyterian

Dolph Griffin Frantz (September 6, 1886 – July 6, 1953) was a journalist who was associated on a long-term basis with the since defunct Shreveport Journal, a once conservative newspaper based in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Frantz was born in Brandon in Rankin County, a part of the metropolitan area of the capital city of Jackson, Mississippi, to Edward E. Frantz (1858-1929) and the former Sudie Brown (1861-1935), who are interred at Cedarlawn Cemetery in Jackson. He had at least two siblings, Walter Kirkpatrick Frantz (1886-1946), who died in New Orleans and is interred at New Iberia, Louisiana, and Reaux B. Frantz (1889-1992). Frantz's paternal grandfather, Andrew Jackson Frantz, Sr. (1827-1892), a Maryland native, was a corporal in Confederate Army and is interred at Brandon Cemetery.

In 1904, Frantz received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Millsaps College in Jackson, at which in 1904 he joined the staff of The Clarion-Ledgerat Jackson, of which his father, Judge E. E. Frantz, of Jackson, was an editor. Frantz migrated to Shreveport, where initially he was roommate in a boarding house with Douglas F. Attaway, Sr., later the publisher of The Shreveport Journal. Frantz's grandfather, Col. A. J. Frantz, was also a newspaperman, the owner ad editor of The Brandon Republican in Mississippi.

From 1905 to 1907, Frantz was employed by The Shreveport Times, the only daily newspaper still in publication in Shreveport. Thereafter, Frantz became in 1907 the Shreveport city auditor and subsequently secretary to the city council as well as secretary to Mayor Ernest R. Bernstein. Within a year, however, Frantz left the municipal positions to become the city editor of The Shreveport Journal. Two years later, his uncle, Andrew Jackson "A. J." Frantz, Jr. (1877-1947), became the president of the Journal Publishing Company and was thereafter an editorial writer for the paper.

Frantz worked in the unsuccessful mayoral campaign of J. Claiborne Foster and as assistant secretary for the Shreveport-based Louisiana State Fair from 1916 to 1918, when he returned full-time to The Shreveport Journal. He was The Journal managing editor from 1919 to 1942 and editor from 1947 until 1953. After 1925, he worked under his former roommate, the Journal president and publisher Douglas Attaway, Sr.

Throughout his career, Frantz was particularly active in the fight for prohibition, having had unfavorable with drunks on Shreveport streets prior to the banning of the sale of alcoholic beverages.

In 1910, Frantz married the former Elda Verne Weaver (1884-1934); after her death, he wed in 1935 her sister, Dell Weaver Lawhorn. Frantz also taught at Centenary College in Shreveport and was affiliated with the First Presbyterian Church, Rotary International, the Boy Scouts of America, Masonic lodge, the Shriners, Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks, and the American Red Cross. He was a member of the Caddo Parish Democratic Executive Committee and a delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention, which met in Chicago to nominate Franklin D. Roosevelt for a third term as president.

Information is unavailable on the circumstances of Frantz's death, two months before his 67th birthday. Like his first wife Elda, his uncle, Andrew Jackson Frantz, Jr., is interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Shreveport. Frantz had a namesake nephew, Dolph Griffin Frantz (1920-1991) of Iberia Parish, Louisiana. Frantz was sufficiently prominent that The New York Times filed an article on his death.