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Permanent LinkRepresentative Clarence A. Knutson View All Years
CLARENCE ADOLPH KNUTSON, insurance and banking executive, former hardware dealer and state legislator, died at Rochester, Minnesota September 27, 1960; born in Clear Lake, Iowa June 16, 1885, the son of pioneer residents, Peter and Hannah Olson Knutson; graduated from Clear Lake high school and the former Memorial University at Mason City; went into business as a partner in his father’s retail hardware store in 1905; married to Hazel Irene Wood of Mason City June 2, 1908; owned and managed the Knutson Hardware Company with his brother following the death of their father in 1919; was local food administrator during both world wars, greatly influenced the progress and growth of the community, serving two terms as mayor of Clear Lake, 1918-20, president of the Iowa Retail Hardware Association, 1921-22, president of the Rotary Club, 1921-23, district governor, 1929-30, member of the Greater Clear Lake Committee, Chamber of Commerce, and a director of the Commercial Club; elected Cerro Gordo County representative to the state legislature for three consecutive terms, 1923-1929, supporting good roads legislation, and sponsoring the first gasoline tax laws in Iowa; upon leaving the hardware business in 1934 organized and was chosen president of the First National Bank, which in 1939 became the Clear Lake Bank & Trust Company, was a Republican candidate for governor of Iowa in 1934, a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1944, and managed the successful senatorial campaign of Governor George A. Wilson in 1942; elected a member of the board of directors of the Iowa Hardware Mutual Insurance Company in 1923, directed its growth into one of the leading firms of its kind upon being chosen president in 1931, and was also chairman of the board of the Iowa Hardware Mutual Casualty Company from 1925 till its consolidation with the former company September 1, 1951; became chairman of the board of the Clear Lake Bank & Trust Company in 1941 and the Iowa Hardware Mutual Insurance Company in the spring of 1960; had been an active member of the American and Iowa Bankers Associations, past president of the Mason City-Cerro Gordo County Bankers Association, master of the Masonic Lodge, chancellor commander of Knights of Pythias, member of Scottish and York Rites, Shrine, the Consistory, Knights Templar, Odd Fellows, Elks, and Gospel Tabernacle; survived by his wife and a daughter, Mrs. Emily Mae Lewis of St. Charles, Missouri.