George Frank Breninger

​George Frank Breninger, 1865-1905
Naturalist
 
Buried in Masons Cemetery, exact location not known

(Generic image created using Bing AI)

---

George Frank Breninger was born in September 1865, probably in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From age fifteen, he manifested an intense fascination with nature, collecting specimens, pelts and eggs. His collection of birds’ eggs was at one time considered the fourth largest in the country.
 
Breninger became an ornithologist and expert taxidermist, mounting many of his specimens himself. As a naturalist, he had traveled widely in the continental United States from the Rockies as far south as the Isthmus of Panama to locate and collect rare species. Some of his work was sent to the Smithsonian Museum and Field Columbian Museum in Chicago. Another of his collections was at Colorado State University. 
 
He married Margaret J. Hoag, daughter of Addison Hoag in Fort Collins, Colorado, on September 19, 1888. Although he and his wife had five children, only their oldest son, David Addison, had a somewhat normal lifespan. Juvenile diabetes seems to have run in the family, as son Walter and daughter May both died of it before insulin became available to treat it. Another child died in infancy, and daughter Luella Ruth died of scarlet fever in 1903.
 
The family moved to Phoenix around 1897. In 1900, Professor Breninger spent six months in the Rockies, collecting specimens for the Foote Mineral Museum in Philadelphia. He published several scholarly papers about birds.
 
In 1903, Professor Breninger traveled to Guatemala and Nicaragua for four months to secure 500 bird specimens for the Field Columbian Museum. The conditions of the trip were rather primitive and Breninger’s team was regarded with some suspicion by the locals, who feared they might be a filibustering expedition intent on destabilizing the Mexican government. Breninger collected many parrot specimens and even some ocelots. He also brought back an orchid plant. It survived the six-week journey back to Arizona and bloomed in 1904.
 
Breninger grew different varieties of crops on his farm to determine whether they could survive in desert conditions. His wife Margaret had a fine flower garden and sold cut flowers in season. It is not known whether they had a greenhouse for their more delicate plants, although there were greenhouses in Phoenix by 1913.
 
For years, Breninger was exposed to arsenic in the course of his taxidermy work. Although he knew it was detrimental to his health, such was his devotion to his nature studies that he accepted the risk. He suffered three strokes, with each one leaving him weaker. 
 
He died on December 2, 1905, at his home at 386 North Sixth Avenue. After a Christian Science funeral, he was buried in Masons Cemetery. 
 
© 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 17 July 2025.

​If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!