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Transcribed from "History of North Washington, an illustrated history of Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan and Chelan counties", published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.

     RUFUS D. JOHNSON, an enterprising mining man and manager of the Chelan Railroad & Navigation Company, resides at Chelan, Chelan county.  He is a native of Indiana, born May 27, 1860.
     His father, David, a native of Ohio, was of Scotch ancestry, and they were pioneer farmers of the state.  He died in Kentucky in 1890.  The mother, Elizabeth A. (Riddle) Johnson, was, also, born in Ohio, and her parents in Pennsylvania, descendants of an old and distinguished family.
     Until the age of thirteen our subject attended public schools in Northern Indiana, and then began the world for himself.  He first went to Chicago, worked in various employments, and in 1878 went to Leadville, Colorado, remained one year, and then pushed down into the southwest portion of the state, and engaged in mining.  Before he was eighteen years old he made his first sale, and he remained in this business until 1897, making Colorado his headquarters, from which he radiated into Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and other territory.  He came to Spokane in 1897, remaining until 1901, when he went to Chelan county and bonded the Holden mine for the Drummers Development Company, a party of commercial traveling men.  He organized the Chelan Transportation & Smelting Company, of which he was manager until February 1, 1903, when he resigned in order to attend to the business of the Chelan Railway & Navigation Company, and his personal affairs.  The object of the Chelan Railway & Navigation Company is to construct an electric railway from the Columbia river to Lake Chelan, and operate a line of steamers on the lake.  The enterprise is well financed by ample capital.
     Mr. Johnson has two brothers, Harry C., and Charles R., of Fort Wayne, Indiana.  March 19, 1900, our subject was married at San Francisco, to Cora D. Mack, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio.  Her father, Charles D., is engaged in the book and stationery business in the same city.  Her mother was a native of Kentucky.  Mrs. Johnson has one brother Alfred, a school boy in Cincinnati.
     Mr. Johnson owns a handsome, two-story brick residence, of ten rooms, with modern improvements, at Chelan and is at present erecting a two-story and basement business block on Woodin avenue.  Politically he is a Republican.