Frank Elwin Ebersole (1871-1933) was a contract electrical engineer who installed automatic telephone systems throughout the United States during the early twentieth century. Ebersole was the proprietor of the Ebersole Construction Company, president of the Independent Telephone Company, and general manager of the Northeastern Telephone Company, Lincoln Telephone Company, Evansville Telephone Company, Houston Home Telephone Company, and other related businesses. He engaged in the construction and installation of telephone services and support structures of each system, including their power plants.

Ebersole was born to Clara Jane Skinner (1849-1931) and Alvin Edgar Ebersole (1843-1903) in Seneca, Ohio. He had two sisters and a brother, Earl Alvin Ebersole (1878-1941), who was also an electrical engineer and sometimes worked on jobs with Frank. Ebersole married Henrietta Blair Zahm (1867-1928) in 1895 before moving to Fostoria, Ohio. The couple had three children, all born in Fostoria, Ohio, between 1896 and 1900.

Ebersole frequently worked as a contractor in partnership with the Automatic Electric Company (A.E. Co.), a telephone equipment supplier for independent telephone companies. A.E. Co. was organized in 1901 largely by the same principal stakeholders that organized the Strowger Automatic Telephone Company, established in 1891. The latter was formed with the inventor Almon Brown Strowger (1839-1902), who patented the two-motion switch in 1889, which formed the basis for automatic telephone switching.

Strowger sold his patents to his associates in 1896 for $1,800; subsequently, his patents were sold to Bell Systems for $2.5 million in 1916. In 1898, Strowger sold his share in the company for $10,000. According to Strowger's 1902 obituary, he and his family felt tricked and defrauded from his patents and shares. The Strowger Automatic Telephone Company merged with A.E. Co. in 1908.

Salesman Joseph Harris (1854-1936) helped raise the finances for the Strowger Automatic Telephone Company, of which he was its secretary and treasurer. Harris became the vice president of A.E. Co., and later its president in 1908, serving in that role until his retirement in 1919.

Ebersole's work took him all over the country. In 1900, the family lived in Huntington, West Virginia, before moving to Evansville, Indiana, where he worked for the Evansville Telephone Company (A.E. Co. syndicate) from 1903 to 1904.

From there, the family moved to Nebraska, where Ebersole worked as the superintendent of the construction of the Hastings Independent Company plant (A.E. Co. syndicate). From 1904 to 1906, he was the manager of the Lincoln Telephone Company (A.E. Co. syndicate).

From 1906 to 1909, Ebersole worked in Portland, Maine. He was appointed special master by the Maine Supreme Court for the Northeastern Telephone Co. (A.E. Co. syndicate), which put him in charge of the disposition of the company's assets. The same year, he organized the Ebersole Construction Co. to construct, operate, and maintain telegraph and telephone lines, of which he was the president and treasurer.

In January 1909, there was a change in control of the Independent Telephone Company (of Omaha) (A.E. Co. syndicate), and Ebersole became president.

By the conclusion of 1910, Ebersole had completed construction on Omaha's automatic telephone system and was the contract engineer for the Houston Home Telephone Company (A.E. Co. syndicate). He established his offices in the Scanlan Building on Main Street in Houston, Texas. He was hired to install the automatic telephone system in Houston and then Galveston. He worked on the project through 1912.

Ebersole died in Houston in 1933, three years after his retirement; however, he is buried near his parents and brother in Ohio.