Adolph Olson Eberhart

Infobox Governor
name=Adolph Olson Eberhart


caption=Adolph Olson Eberhart
order= 17^th
office= Governor of Minnesota
term_start= September 21, 1909
term_end= January 5, 1915
lieutenant=Edward Everett Smith,Samuel Y. Gordon, Joseph A. A. Burnquist
predecessor= John Albert Johnson
successor= Winfield Scott Hammond
birth_date= birth date|1870|6|23|mf=y
birth_place= Värmland, Sweden
death_date= death date and age|1944|12|6|1870|6|23|mf=y
death_place= Savage, Minnesota
party=Republican
profession=politician
spouse=Adele O.M. Koke
religion=
footnotes=

Adolph Olson Eberhart (June 23, 1870ndash December 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 Albert 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.

References

* [http://www.mnhs.org/people/governors/gov/gov_19.htm Minnesota Historical Society]
* [http://www.leg.state.mn.us/legdb/fulldetail.asp?ID=12663 Minnesota Legislators Past and Present]