lasted a bit longer, the Manitou episode pretty much ended his aviation career. Noting the number of early-day deaths in the air, wife Anna said, with two children and a third on the way, she did not want to be a young widow.

            Johnson once said that his spending a year on a whaling ship near his native Norway watching the bow wave, “gave me ideas for the shape of boat hulls and also airplane wings.” Johnson Boat Works was in existence for 100 years. John O. Johnson died in 1963, age 88.

             Information for this story was compiled by History Centre Director Robert              L. Johnson (no relation) gleaned from a book entitled “John O. Johnson –              from Norway to White Bear Lake” by John W. Johnson, his grandson. It is              available at the White Bear Lake Historical Society in the old railroad depot, there.