Archives West Finding Aid

Alvin Emel Olson was born in 1877 near Stockholm, Sweden, and emigrated to the United States in 1883. He lived on his father's farm near Harrington, Washington, for some years before acquiring a farm of his own in Whitman County near Pullman in 1908. Olson and his wife, Ella Cecelia Lybecker, had six children, three of whom reached adulthood.

Elected to the Washington State House of Representatives in 1923, Olson served as chairman of the Educational Institutions Committee, and was a member of the Banks and Banking, Dairy and Livestock, Public Morals, and Roads and Bridges committees. During his approximately twelve years in the Legislature he was noted for supporting the interests of Washington State University.

In addition to farming and holding public office, Olson was also a director and later vice president of the First National Bank of Pullman. He served as a lobbyist in the Legislature for the Washington State Cooperative Council in the 1940s, at which time he was also president of Pullman Grain Growers, Inc. When he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the 1940s, his son, J. Forrest, assumed management of the farm. Alvin E. Olson died 19 January 1950.