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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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Compendium of History and Biography
of Northern Minnesota
pub: Geo. A. Ogle & Co., Chicago, Ill., 1902

              Page 143-144
              
              
                        HON. HALVOR STEENERSON
                        
              This gentleman is one of the best known and highly
            esteemed members of the legal profession of Minnesota,
            while his reputation as a jurist and able advocate ex-
            tends throughout all the northwestern states. He is a
            man of strong physique and tall in stature. stamdomg
            six foot three inches in height in his stocking feet,
            and has been by his friends and admirers called the
            "tall pine of the Red River Valley." Mr. STEENERSON
            is the fourth of seven children and was born on a
            farm in the town of Pleason Springs, Dane county, Wis-
            consin, June 30, 1852. He is a son of STENER and BIRGITH
            (ROHOLT) MEAAS, who emigrated from Thelemorken, Norway,
            in 1851, and settled in Dane county, Wisconsin. But,
            subsequently, in 1853 removed to Houston county in the
            then territory of Minnesota, where they were among the
            earliest pioneers. The subject of this sketch entered
            the common schools and afterward a graded and high school
            in his neighborhood, and after spending a few years
            teaching school he entered a law office in 1875 to pre-
            pare himself for his future career as a lawyer. In 1877
            he went to Chicago, where he attended the Union College
            of Law and was admitted to practice in the supreme court
            of Illinois in June, 1878. In the following September 
            Mr. STEENERSON opened a law office on his own account
            at Lonesboro, Fillmore county, Minnesota, and at once
            acquired a good practice. In the spring of 1880 he re-
            moved to Crookston and was the same year elected county
            attorney, in which capacity he served until 1883, in the
            meantime having been elected state senator, in which
            latter capacity he served in the sessions of 1883 and
            1885. While in the senate Mr. STEENERSON took a leading
            part in forming the railroad and warehouse laws of the
            state. It was at a session of 1885 that the Railroad
            and Warehouse Commission was first created and the act
            creating the commission has been the basis of all sub-
            sequent legislation. Mr. STEENERSON has always been a
            strong advocate of state regulation and control of rail-
            way and other quasi public corporations, and on this
            account he was induced in 1895 to conduct proceedings
            on behalf of the farmers and grain shippers to compel
            the Great Northern Railway Company to reduce its freight
            rates on grain. The case was instituted in the name of
            ELIAS STEENERSON, an extensive farmer of Polk county,
            who asked for a one-third reduction on grain from the
            Red river valley points to Duluth and Minneapolis. The
            case was most stubbornly contested before the Railroad
            and Warehouse Commission and twice carried to the supreme
            court, but the reduction ordered by the commission of 
            about 15 per cent was finally sustained and acquiesced
            in by the railroad company. This litigation popularly
            known as the "STEENERSON grain rate case," established
            the right of state control over railway charges in this
            state and was of great importance to the people of
            Minnesota.
              Mr. STEENERSON has established a very lucrative 
            practice and is in continuous demand, yet he has found
            time to take considerable interest in public affairs
            and has held various other local offices, such as mem-
            ber of the board of education and city attorney and
            has often represented the county in Republican state
            and district conventions and twice represented the
            state in Republican national conventions.
              MR. STEENERSON was married in 1878 to MARY
            CHRISTOPHERSON, and has four children, only two of whom
            are now living, CLARA, a daughter, and BENJAMIN G., a
            son, now twenty and seventeen years old, respectively.
              Mr. STEENERSON has a fine home on Houston avenue, and
            is also one of the extensive real estate holders of
            Crookston. A fine portait addorns one of the pages of
            this volume, to which the reader is referred.
            
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