Ernest G. Carlsen
Business Sioux Falls, SD
Ernest G. Carlsen is a lawyer, businessman, community leader and family man who has lived most of his life in South Dakota. Ernie was born on a ranch near Hoover, South Dakota, on April 25, 1921, the youngest of nine children born to Danish immigrants, Chris and Cecelia Carlsen.
protection to the parties. There was an urgent demand at the time because the federal government required title insurance, not abstracts, for its many projects throughout the country. He was a quick study, and in the early 1950’s, after becoming a Vice President for the Title Insurance Company of Idaho, he introduced title insurance to counties across South Dakota, thereby becoming “The Father of Title Insurance in South Dakota.”
Ernie did a great deal of title work throughout the state While growing up on what eventually became the for the federal government, which was purchasing 14,000-acre Carlsen Ranch near Castle Rock, South land and easements for the interstate highway system, Dakota, the summers found him reading in isolated Gavins Point Dam, Big Bend Dam, and Oahe Dam. sheep wagons when he was not tending to the sheep herds, and the winters found him studying through the He worked for many years as the underwriter’s general eighth-grade in one-room school houses on the prairie. counsel to South Dakota’s agents, and he was the key At age 14, Ernie moved to Newell, where he graduated “go-to” person to whom agents turned when they had puzzling title questions. from high school in 1939. His first two years of college were spent at Black Hill Ernie was also the “go-to” guy for South Dakota lawyers State College, where he learned to fly aerobatics from when they had complicated problems relating to real the famous South Dakota aviator, Clyde Ice. Later he property and estates. Lawyers could rely upon Ernie joined the Army Air Corps. After his military service, he to spend the time necessary to help them resolve married Bonnie Brammer of Vermillion, South Dakota, their problems, and he never charged his attorney and together they lovingly raised three children, Nancy, colleagues for his advice. He was there to help and to educate, and he always enjoyed the challenge. Cindy, and Chris.
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Ernie graduated from the University of South Dakota Business School in 1945 with a BA/BS in business administration and economics and with a Juris Doctorate from USD Law School in 1948. He has been a member of the South Dakota Bar for over sixty-nine years, since February 26, 1948.
After introducing title insurance to South Dakota, Ernie and his wife, Bonnie, started Land Title Guaranty Company in Sioux Falls in 1955, which was owned by the Carlsen family until the end of 2013, when Ernie retired at the age of 92.
Upon graduation from USD law school, Ernie took a job in Washington State and began learning the title insurance business. Title insurance was a replacement for the old abstracting system in use at that time. Abstracts, and the associated opinions of lawyers, provided limited protection for sellers and buyers of real property, while title insurance gave far greater
The Father of Title Insurance in South Dakota
South Dakota Hall of Fame
Ernie was an entrepreneur who created a viable small
