John Edward Erickson was born in Stoughton, Wisconsin, on March 14, 1863, the son of a Norwegian immigrant. A year later his family moved to a Greenwood County, Kansas, homestead. Erickson graduated from Washburn College in Topeka in 1890, and was admitted to the Kansas state bar a year later.

In 1893 Erickson moved to Choteau, Montana, and began his law practice. He served three terms as county attorney, and then was elected judge of the 11th Judicial District for three terms, beginning in 1904. Erickson resigned from the bench in 1915 to move his law practice to Kalispell. Three years later he was appointed to fill an associate justice vacancy on the Montana Supreme Court, but refused to accept the position. Always active in politics, Erickson was a delegate to the 1920 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco and chairman of the Democratic State Committee in 1922. Two years later he received his party's nomination for governor. He defeated the incumbent, Joseph M. Dixon, and assumed the office on January 5, 1925. He was re-elected in 1928 and 1932. Erickson resigned the governor's seat on March 13, 1933, to accept an appointment as U.S. Senator, replacing Thomas J. Walsh who died in office. Erickson was defeated by James E. Murray when he ran for the Senate in November 1934.

Erickson returned to Helena to work again as a lawyer and to serve on the Montana Old Age Commission. On June 27, 1898, Erickson married Grace Vance at Salt Lake City. They had three children, Vance (b. 1901), Ellen (b. 1904), and John Cooper (b. 1908). John E. Erickson died in Helena on May 25, 1946, at the age of 83.