Allen I. Olson
American lawyer and politician
Allen Ingvar "Al" Olson (November 5, 1938 – December 26, 2025) was an American Republican politician and attorney who served from 1981 to 1985 as the 28th governor of North Dakota. He defeated incumbent Arthur A. Link in the 1980 election and served one term.
Education, military service and legal career
Olson was born on November 5, 1938, in Rolla, North Dakota. He received a law degree from the University of North Dakota, where he joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and served in the United States Army as a judge advocate general's corps lawyer. In 1967 he served as Chief of Military Justice in Munich. From 1967 to 1969 he served as the assistant director of the Legislative Research Committee, which directed the state's first study of surface mining, soil banks, and land reclamation. He entered private practice as an attorney in 1969 with the law firm of Conmy, Rosenberg, Lucas, and Olson. He ran for attorney general of North Dakota in 1972 and served two terms in that position.
Governor of North Dakota
In 1980, Olson sought the governor's office and defeated the incumbent, Arthur A. Link. His achievements during his term include creating the Department of Human Services and converting the Cross-Ranch into a state park.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q883207. VIAF identifies the subject as 53244867. The Library of Congress control number is n88156639. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 2025, 1981 and 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “Allen I. Olson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.