Frank Meinen, Wisconsin farmer, electric fence manufacturer, and political conservative, was born on April 2, 1904. Of German Catholic descent, he grew up and lived his entire life as a bachelor on the same 240-acre farm near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Unfortunately, many of the details of his life are undocumented in the papers. It is known that Meinen and his younger brother Lawrence joined their father Nichlaus Meinen in the management of the farm during the 1920's. In 1935 Frank Meinen, who was also a licensed electrician and an inventor, established the Meinen Manufacturing Company to produce electric fence controllers and equipment, leaving primary responsibility for managing the farm for their widowed mother to Lawrence. By the early 1940's sluggish business and steady losses forced him out of the manufacturing business, and Frank Meinen turned instead to fence repair and electrical contracting. After the death of their mother Frank joined Lawrence as partners in the operation of the farm, Meinen Brothers.
In 1953 Meinen began to manufacture the Kwik-E insulator, an invention designed to encourage pasture rotation through easy fence mobility. The Kwik-E was patented in 1956, but in 1962 Meinen was still attempting to sell the patent, his failure apparently due to an inability to keep unit costs down and to efficiently address repair problems. The papers do not indicate whether the patent was ever sold. Beginning in the early 1960's Meinen again turned to fence repair and electrical wiring.
Meinen was an active member of several agricultural organizations. Although the exact dates are uncertain, he is known to have belonged to the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union during the 1940's, holding at various times the local offices of president and secretary/treasurer. Meinen broke with the Farmers Union in 1948, however, citing his belief that the organization was headed by radicals. From 1949 to the 1980's Meinen was active in the Chippewa County Farm Bureau, a local affiliate of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation. At various times he served as secretary/treasurer and president of the local group. He was also active in various bureau programs and program committees.
Meinen was a man of strong political and religious convictions which he frequently expressed in the local newspapers. In 1982 at the age of 78 he received a BA in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. In January 1991, Meinen died at his home in Tilden, Wisconsin.
