Interesting Traphagen Facts

    Near Lemgo, Germany is a small village of about 200 people called Trophagen. This ancient village may be the ancestral home of all Traphagens and the source of the name.

    There is a Traphagen Street or Road in Wayne, New Jersey, Tell City, Indiana, and Massillon, Ohio and a Traphagen Lane in Gardiner twp, Ulster County, New York.

   Ethel Traphagen founded the Traphagen School of Fashion in New York City  about 1925 and it is still in operation today. Ethel was a well known Fashion Designer and is credited with introducing shorts and slacks into American womens fashion.

    There are two Traphagen elementary schools, one in Walwick, New Jersey and one in Mt. Vernon, New York.

    The Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, was the daughter of Frank and Ida (Traphagen) Kinnan.  She was also the author of The Soujourner and Cross Creek, which is based on her Traphagen grandfather in Michigan.

    On the campus of Montana State University in Billings is Traphagen Hall, the universities science building. It was named for Frank Weiss Traphagen who was a professor of Chemistry and Engineering in the early 1900's.

    Oliver Traphagen was a well known architect in the last part of the 1800's and the early 1900's. He lived  and worked in Duluth, Minnesota, Honolulu, Hawaii, and San Francisco, California. He left many notable buildings in each location but one of the most well known is the Moana Beach Club, the first tourist hotel on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu.  It still stands today as the Sheraton Moana Hotel.

Police Station, Duluth, Minnesota	Firehhouse No. 4, Honolulu, Hawaii
Buildings designed by Oliver Traphagen

    Dake Traphagen is a well known luthier and guitar maker living in Bellingham, Washington. He has his own homepage, Traphagen Guitars.       

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