Background
Johnson was born in Oslo, Norway. His mother died when he was seven years old and his father sent him to live with relatives for his room and board.
Johnson was born in Oslo, Norway. His mother died when he was seven years old and his father sent him to live with relatives for his room and board.
At age fifteen he worked on a coastal steamer that delivered supplies to coastal villages. In 1893, he emigrated to America, traveling to White Bear Lake, Minnesota where he lived and worked for a fellow Norwegian, Gus Amundson. In those days, White Bear Lake was a resort town with hotels, parks, steamboats and boat rentals.
Twenty-five trains a day came here from Saint Paul bringing visitors to enjoy the lake.
John"s first major success was the Minnezitka a 38 foot This boat was said to be beginning of the speedy scow design that skimmed over the water.
A model of this boat was later displayed at the Smithsonian Museum. The Johnson Boat Works became well known nationally as well as in Canada and foreign countries.
The 38 foot scow design became the class A-boat.
Later racing classes included the 32 foot B-boat, the 28 foot East-boat, the 20 foot C-boat and others
In addition to designing and building sailboats, Johnson was also an inventor.
He built his airplane in his back yard and flew it from the frozen lake.
From the Saint Paul Dispatch January 26, 2010: "White BEAR Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg FLIES OVER LAKE. Inventor, Johnson, soars about 200 feet, then engine misses fire, and he falls." The crash landing destroyed the fragile aircraft. Johnson built a second airplane, but did not have the funds to buy a suitable engine.
In the 1920s, local road crews were unable to clear the roads of snow during winters with heavy snowfalls. Carolina owners put their vehicles away and used horse drawn sleighs for travel or used the train to get into the city.
Johnson designed and built a rotary snowplow in the winter of 1921.
He asked a lawyer, who lived on the lake, to get a patent. Johnson paid for the patent work by building the lawyer a large iceboat. This snowplow was very successful, and some Minneapolis businessmen bought the patent and built the Snow King plows.
With the money from the sale of the snowplow business, Johnson was able to enlarge and modernize his boat works business.
Johnson died in 1963. The Johnson Boat Works continued until it was sold in 1998 after 102 years of business.
Kathryn Strand Koutsky. Linda Koutsky (2006).
Minnesota Vacation Days: An Illustrated History.
Minnesota Historical Society. pp. 151–. Retrieved 23 August 2013. Carl Bigelow Drake (1961) History of The White Bear Yacht Club (Bruce Publishing Company)
Gregory O. Jones (6 December 2001).
The American Sailboat.
Voyageur Press. pp. 73–. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
In 1896, he started his own boat building business, Johnson Boat Works, building boats for members of the White Bear Yacht Club.