ROSEAU, Minn. _ David Johnson liked to say laziness inspired the first Polaris snowmobile.
An avid outdoorsman, Johnson said he built the first snowmobile in January 1956 as a way to enjoy the outdoors in winter. The machine was assembled from parts on hand in a Roseau machine shop, including binder chains for the track and a car bumper for skis.
"My story is we were lazy," Johnson told the Herald in a March 2015 story. "We didn't want to ski up to hunting camp. We just wanted to see if we could make a machine that would go in snow. We wanted to be able to get to the Northwest Angle and places like that because we were 'Up North' people who liked to hunt and fish."
Johnson, who co-founded Polaris Industries in 1954 and pieced together the company's first snowmobile in that Roseau machine shop, died Saturday, Oct. 8, at home.
He was 93.
A Roseau County native, Johnson, along with boyhood friend and brother-in-law Edgar Hetteen, started the Hetteen Hoist and Derrick company in Roseau in 1945, making straw choppers and other equipment.
Edgar's brother, Allan, joined them in 1948.
They incorporated as Polaris Industries in 1954, taking the name from a sprayer they had purchased from a developer in North Dakota. Before snowmobiles became their flagship product, the Roseau entrepreneurs made everything from plowshares to garbage cans.
"We made anything that would give us a dollar," Johnson said. "We made quite a bit of machinery for the farmers. Anything we could get some money out of, we would do."
