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Adolph Olson Eberhart




Adolph Olson Eberhart ( June 23 , 1870December 6 , 1944 ) was born in Sweden and became an American Politician .

Born in 1870 in Värmland , Sweden , he was a member of the Minnesota State Senate from January, 1903 to January, 1907 . He was elected the 17th Lieutenant Governor in 1906 . He became the 17th Governor Of Minnesota on September 21 , 1909 , when Governor John Albert Johnson died, and served until January 5 , 1915 . Eberhart was a Republican . Minnesota elected Governors and Lt. Governors on separate ballots until 1974 , so it happened occasionally that the two were of different parties.

Elected the youngest member of the state senate in 1902 , the Republican Eberhart was chosen as lieutenant governor four years later in the administration of the legendary Democrat, John A. Johnson . Although his first partial term as governor resulted from Johnson's untimely death in 1909 , he subsequently won the office twice on his own merits.

An efficient administrator, Eberhart was also a consummate politician, and his detractors, including many Republicans, questioned his sincerity as well as the reputation of certain close associates. To assure his re-nomination in 1912 , he called a special 13-day legislative session and deflated his critics by bulldozing through such progressive reforms as rural school consolidation and primary elections. Eberhart's strategy worked; he avoided the censure of his own party and was re-nominated for a second full term in the first statewide primary.

Eberhart lost his re-nomination bid for a fourth term as governor. A second defeat in the 1916 U.S. Senate primary marked the end of his political career. After a career as a real estate and insurance executive in Chicago, he retired to a rest home where he died in Savage, Minnesota .


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