Carl Oscar Ericson Biography


	This biography appears on page 523-524 in "History of Minnehaha
	County, South Dakota" by Dana R. Bailey and was scanned, OCRed
	and edited by Joy Fisher, http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00001.html#0000031
.

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ERICSON, CARL OSCAR, was born in Sweden April 15, 1853. His father was a manufacturer 
of tower clocks, watches and other clocks on quite an extensive scale, and the time 
he could spare from his studies was spent in the shops, where he soon learned to 
master the intricacies of machinery and watchmaking with wonderful accuracy. When 
only seventeen years of age he was employed to regulate and remodel a great number 
of clocks of exceedingly fine workmanship for the royal family of Sweden, and daily 
visited the royal palace at Stockholm.  In 1872 he was taken with the fever of seeing 
America, and setting out for that country landed in Quebec, Canada, where he engaged 
in the watchmaking and jewelry business for about five years; came to the United 
States and after looking the country over located at Brodhead, Wis., until he removed 
to Sioux Falls, where he arrived in the fall of 1879.  He opened a jewelry store on 
Phillips avenue, and soon after commenced building the tower clock which is now doing 
duty in the Masonic Temple at Sioux Falls, and was the first tower clock in Dakota.  
In 1886 he was induced to take charge of the Electric Light plant at Sioux Falls, 
which was then in its infancy, and he remained its superintendent and manager 
through all its stages of development until it became one of the largest and best 
running plants in the Northwest, and gained for himself quite an enviable reputation 
as an electrician. He was a mechanical genius and made several inventions, one of 
which in particular attracted the attention of the scientific world and was discussed 
at length in the Scientific American and other kindred papers, and for which the 
Inventors' Academy of Paris, France, awarded him on the 12th of August, 1893 the 
"Great Gold Medal," and conferred upon him the title of Member of Honor of the 
Academy.  During the latter part of 1896 his health commenced failing and he was 
compelled to resign his position at the electric light works and went to Calfornia 
in the hope of regaining his health, but after a few months stay in that country 
returned to Sioux Falls, where after a lingering illness he died on the 4th day of 
February, 1898. Mr. Ericson was a conscientious, upright and highly respected 
citizen, and his death was deeply regretted by his large circle of friends.