John E. Olson, organizer and executive in several rural electric cooperatives and active in local and state politics, was born in the Town of Sioux Creek, Barron County, Wisconsin, 15 June 1892. Farming has been Olson's lifelong work but very early he became involved in public and cooperative service.
Olson's political career began in 1920 when he was elected director of the Barron County Farm Loan Association, a position he retained for twenty-two years. Later he helped organize, and served as chairman of, the Sioux Creek Town Board from 1928 to 1948. He also served on the Barron County Board of Supervisors from 1931 to 1948. In a special election in April 1949 Olson won a Wisconsin State Senate seat as a Democrat representing Barron, Polk and Dunn counties. In office until 1950, he was a member of the Agriculture Committee and the Legislative Council.
Olson's involvement with rural electric cooperatives began when the United States Congress passed legislation for the Rural Electrification Administration in 1936. Olson immediately began organizing the Barron County Electric Cooperative and served on its board of directors until 1948. In December 1941 he helped organize Dairyland Power Cooperative when Wisconsin Power Cooperative, of which he was a director, and Tri-State Power Cooperative merged. He was elected to Dairyland's first board of directors and in 1950 he was elected president of the cooperative, a position he held until his retirement in 1974. Olson thoroughly involved himself in the cooperative movement in Wisconsin. In addition to the above he served on the board of directors of the Wisconsin Electric Cooperative and its offshoot the Wisconsin Electric Cooperative Association from 1937 until 1974; the Wisconsin Association of Cooperatives and its outgrowth the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives for eighteen years; the Insurance Cooperative Agency from 1952 to 1973 and as the secretary of the short-lived Badger Electric Cooperative from 1946 to 1957.
