Frank Koester

Born Franz Köster in Sterkrade, Germany, on August 28, 1876, he later built his career in the United States as an engineer, writer, and urban planner. He is generally described as a German-American author whose professional life connected technical expertise with public-facing writing, and he died in New York City on October 5, 1927.

Much of his published work focused on infrastructure and modern life. Titles associated with him include Hydroelectric Developments and Engineering, Steam-Electric Power Plants, Electricity for the Farm and Home, The Price of Inefficiency, and Modern City Planning and Maintenance. Together, these books suggest a writer interested not just in machines and systems, but in how technology, efficiency, and planning could shape everyday society.

He also seems to have written outside strictly technical subjects. Reference sources connect him with the 1923 novel Under the Desert Stars, a reminder that his interests were broader than engineering alone. That mix of technical authority and wide-ranging curiosity gives his work a distinctive voice even today.