George W. Olson

GEORGE W. OLSON, a native Kansan, since reaching adult years has been variously engaged as a merchant, farmer and banker. After a successful connection with several other banks he established in the spring of 1909 the Cedar State Bank, and has since been its chief executive officer and cashier. This bank, located on the north side of the Public Square of Cedar, has a capital and surplus of $15,000 and has supplied a splendid general banking service to that community. Al Daugherty, of Logan, is its president and Albert Frutiger, of Cedar, is vice president.

Mr. Olson was born in Doniphan County, Kansas, August 13, 1876. His father, H. J. Olson, was born in Denmark in 1839. In 1865 he came to the United States, living in Michigan for several years and about 1870 established a home in Doniphan County, Kansas, where he turned his energies to farming. He was a hard worker, a good manager of his resources, and though starting with limited capital he made a homestead which few of the Kansas pioneers equalled. In 1885 he bought a quarter section near Lenora, and moved his family to that farm in 1888. He died at Lenora August 15, 1903. At the time of his death his property interests comprised 1,120 acres, all of which is still owned by his family. He was a republican in politics and a member of the Lutheran Church. H. J. Olson married Elsie J. Mikkelson, who was born in Denmark in 1838 and is still living at the age of fourscore at Cedar, Kansas. She has two sons, Carl J. and George W. The former lives at Quinter and is cashier of the First National Bank there.

George W. Olson had his first schooling in Doniphan County and later in Graham County, Kansas, where he attended the Hill City High School. His life to the age of twenty-one was spent on his father's farm. He left school at the age of twenty and in the fall of 1900 engaged in the hardware business at Hill City. A year later he moved to Moreland, Kansas, was a hardware merchant there, but traded his store for a farm and also helped operate the home place. In the spring of 1904 he resumed merchandising at Palco, and in 1907 entered the Winona State Bank as cashier. Somewhat later he bought the Bank at M!orelaad, and was its cashier until he came to Cedar in the spring of 1909. He has a vital connection with Kansas farming interests, owning 440 acres of farm land in Graham and Cloud counties. His home in Cedar was built in 1910.

Mr. Olson is a republican and has served as a member of the town council and school board. He is a member of the Lutheran Church and is affiliated with Lenora Lodge of Masons, and is past grand of Cedar Lodge No. 339, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

In 1903, at Moreland, he married Miss Pearl Henderson, daughter of Mont and Della Henderson, farmers living at Glencoe, Oklahoma. Mr. and Mrs. Olson have three children: Ernest, born October 2, 1904; Delane, born in 1910; and Kenneth, born October 19, 1912.