California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


O. A. OLSEN. � A well-posted viticulturist, now in independent circum- 
stances, who is enjoying the rewards of hard labor and enterprise of such a 
nature that no one could possibly envy him his success, is O. A. Olsen. He 
was born at Flekkefjord, Norway, on May 1, 1879, the son of Ole Tonneson, 
a farmer having a farm and a fisherman who had his own vessel, the catching 
of fish being his chief industry. He used to make trips to the north coast of 
Norway and bring back his catch ; and he was locally famous for his experi- 
ence and prowess. He lived to a good old age, and died in the land of his 
birth. His wife was Tobnia Larsen before her marriage. When she died, she 
was the mother of seven children, among whom three, all sons, are now liv- 
ing: Thomas is in Fortuna, and Louis is in Loleta, Cal., the owner of the 
Loleta Lumber Yard ; while O. A. Olsen lives on his ranch twelve miles east 
of Fresno. 

After finishing the courses at the public schools, the lad assisted his 
father until he was seventeen, and then he sailed from Norway for the 
United States. 

In 1896, Mr. Olsen reached Fortuna. Humboldt County, and soon after. 
at Newburg, entered the employ of the Eel River Valley Lumber Company. 
Two months later he went to Scotia and began grading for the P. E. I. Co., 
after which he was a sawyer, running the big band saw. At the end of a year 
he resigned and went to Siskiyou County, and there, at La Moyne, he was 
sawyer for the La Moyne Lumber Company for another year. Typhoid fever 
drove him back to Fortuna. and in the spring of 1904 he came to Fresno 
County, where he entered on a service of two years as sawyer for the Sanger 
Lumber Company. Then he went to Loyalton, Sierra County, to work as 
sawyer for the Roberts Lumber Company and he continued with them for 
five years, or until they ran out of logs. He next shifted to the Marsh Lumber 
Company to perform the same service, and left them at the end of two years, 
only because that company also ran out of timber. Two years of hard, expert 
work as sawyer for the Davis Lumber Company completed a service as saw- 
yer of eleven years, and after one more year in the same capacity, with the 
Sugar Pine Lumber Company at Madera, he returned to Sanger to quit 
lumbering and take up the new field of farming. 

For the last ten years Mr. Olsen has been engaged in viticulture, and 
gradually he has built up an enviable reputation Eor leadership in the most 
up-to-date methods. He bought twenty acres of vineyard near Sanger, ran 
it awhile, and then sold it at a good profit. He next bought forty acres of 
raw land on McCall and Ventura Avenues, improved the same and set out a 
vineyard ; and two years later he sold it at a good profit. Once again he 
bought a vineyard, this time of thirty acres, near Sanger, for which he paid 
$6,500, kept it three years, and sold it at a fair profit. Then he bought ten 
acres near Sanger which he sold to his father-in-law in 1915, and associating 
himself with the Alexander Land Company of Fresno, he engaged in real 
estate for a year. About the same time he bought forty acres near Sanger, 
which he sold in two months at a good profit. 

In the spring of 1916, he bought eighty acres near Sanger for $20,000, 
located on it, set out forty acres to vines, and planted the other forty to alfalfa, 
and in January, 1918, sold it at a big profit. He had taken off two crops 
worth $10,000, and he received $32,000 for the land. Before this he had 
bought his present place of twenty-six acres on Ventura Avenue, where he 
made his home, and also thirty-seven acres across the road, which he planted 
to grain. Well-posted on land values, Mr. Olsen knows when the price is 
right and how both to safeguard himself and to do justice by the purchaser; 
and the result is that whoever does business with this enterprising rancher 
never fails to be satisfied. One of the original members of the California 
Associated Raisin Company, he was long correspondent and signed up 
every member in his section, besides securing outside district support ; and 
he is also an active member of the California Peach Growers Association, Inc. 

At Sanger, Mr. Olsen was married to Miss Sabina Garbick, a native of 
Galicia, Austria, who came here with her parents when she was a girl. Three 
children have blessed this happy union : Alfred Sigmund ; Alice Sabina, and 
Herman Thomas. The family attends the Methodist Church at Sanger, and 
Mr. Olsen is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and of the 
Red Men. 

While at Eureka, in 1901, Mr. Olsen was made a citizen of the United 
States. He has served his fellow citizens as trustee of the Granville School 
District.