In the words of historian Mike Foster, Frank Rhoda was an "artist, musician, writer, surveyor, naturalist, social critic, defender of civil liberties and champion of Christ - the only theme unifying his versatile life was idealism that aimed to reform almost everything he encountered.
Rhoda studied civil engineering at the University of California and in 1872 at age 19 he was the youngest member of that institution's first graduating class.
[1] For three summer seasons (1873–75) he worked with his half brother A. D. Wilson as assistant topographer producing eloquete notes and detailed sketches of mountains in southwestern Colorado.
Rhoda's chronicling of the 1874 Hayden Survey has been considered one of the "best of the last century in American mountaineering",[2] and parts of his account were published in the Pittsburgh Gazette.
In all, Wilson and Rhoda “climbed 35 summits over 12,000 feet in order to triangulate for mapping the great San Juan uplift.
He wrote numerous articles "attacking financiers, especially stockbrokers and real estate agents...he fired equal wrath at apparently socialistic Irishmen who were organizing the labor force in California.
[17] In 1883 Rhoda enrolled at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, but soon dropped out to follow his own religious path which involved co-editing two religious monthlies, practicing and teaching "mind cure" an offshoot Christian Science, the "holiness movement," street preaching/singing, co-founding a "Church of the New Age" and founding an "Underground Mission".
Rhoda's philosophy and knowledge were based on personal insights and direct experience, he was “suspicious of professors, book learning, and the specialization of experts” and he "laughed at evolution, but just as ruthlessly made fun of creationists.