John A. Johnson

Who was John A. Johnson?

John A. Johnson was a Minnesota politician and a Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. He served three decades in the Minnesota legislature, twenty of those years in the Minnesota House.

Johnson was a hardware store owner in Preston, Minnesota when he was first elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1920. He caucused with the Conservative caucus in the then-nonpartisan legislature. In 1925, he was elected Speaker of the House, a position he held until he left the legislature in 1931.

Johnson served as postmaster of the house during his time out of office, and returned to the legislature as a representative in 1939, serving ten years, most of that as chair of the Municipal Affairs committee. In 1949, he moved to the Minnesota Senate after winning a special election. He retired from the legislature in 1959.