Archives West Finding Aid

Orange A. Olsen was born October 10, 1890 with a twin named Henning. Both were named after their grandfathers, Utah pioneers Orange Seely and Henning Olsen. Their parents Abenadi and Hannah Seely Olsen raised them on a farm. Olsen attended three years of high school in the Emery Stake Academy and, from 1910 to 1912, served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints LDS mission in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Afterwards, he worked as a clerk in the Castle Dale Cooperative store (2 years), then as a bookkeeper for the Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company. He married Aileen Brown of Salt Lake City in 1915 and took a correspondence course in law.

Olsen began work with the Forest Service in November 1917 as a clerk in the Manti Supervisor's Office in Ephraim. He was the Mammoth District Ranger (near Fairview) on the Manti from 1918 until 1922 when he became deputy forest supervisor. His next appointments were as forest supervisor of the Lemhi (1922-23), La Sal (1923-26), and Dixie (1926-31) national forests. In 1931, Olsen transferred to Region 4's regional office in Ogden, Utah to head up the wildlife division. In order to regulate big game hunting and fishing activities in his region, he began conducting the annual wildlife census via aircraft. In 1945 he wrote Elk Below!, a book about nature conservation. He was considered a pioneer in developing this new technique of the big game census. Orange Olsen died in 1945 in an airplane crash while conducting an aerial count of elk in the Bridger National Forest.