TRACT 17 - V. H. JORGENSEN
The 21st signer of the Federal Heights incorporation petition was V.H. Jorgensen. Jorgensen purchased Tract 17 from H.D. Rockwell on February 19, 1935.
Vernon Henry Jorgensen was born on Christmas Day, December 25, 1903 in Helper, Utah to Asmus and Anna Laura (Lamb) Jorgensen. Asmus was 59 years old; Anna was 32 years old. Vernon, the youngest child of Asmus and Anna Laura, weighed over ten pounds.
Anna’s father, Abel, was an early Mormon pioneer, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in 1850. Her mother, Maria Sandberg, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and immigrated to the U.S. as a child. When Anna Laura married Asmus Jorgensen on February 12, 1896, she became one of his five plural wives.
In 1890, under heavy pressure from the U.S. Government, the Mormon Church published its manifesto to discontinue the practice of polygamy. Due to this new law, plural families were forced apart, leaving many wives and children destitute and without financial support. In about 1906, Vern’s mother left Utah taking her three daughters and two sons to Grand Junction, Colorado. In 1909, the family moved to Denver where Anna met and married Joe Otis in 1910.
Vern attended public school in Denver and was only able to complete the eighth grade before he was forced to quit in order to find work and support his mother and sisters. As Vern was large for his age, he was able to obtain work as a laborer breaking sod in eastern Colorado.
On February 5, 1922, at the age of 18, Vernon married Dorothy Van Cleave in Littleton, Colorado. Dorothy’s family had survived a devastating house fire in January of that year. Vern promptly asked her father for permission to marry Dorothy, telling her father that he would “take her off his hands.” Vern purchased their first home at age 18. He was legally underage, so his mother, Anna, co-signed on the property with him. Over the next four years, the couple had three daughters, Bernice, Laura Beth and Clara Louise.
In the 1920s, Vern and Dorothy had a truck farm in Denver near the South Platte River and Santa Fe Drive. He also started a landscape business in the Cherry Hills area with his brothers-in-law tending summer yards. He supplemented his income by shoveling coal in winter.
In 1930, the Jorgensen family lived on South Kalamath Street in Denver. Vern had an enterprising spirit and was a born entrepreneur. One of his ventures was a truck hauling business. He hauled horse manure from Fort Logan to the Savery Mushroom plant on North Federal. He would then pick up a load of coal from the coal fields north of Broomfield and haul the load to Fort Logan and to residents in Cherry Hills. This trucking business eventually evolved into the Cascade Oil Company and Vern would haul gas to service stations on the front range, owning 11 stations. He also owned Cascade Motor Home sales and a dry-land wheat farm in eastern Adams County, Colorado.
On Tuesday, February 19, 1935, Vern and Dorothy purchased Tract 17 in North Federal Heights with a down payment of $10 and a loan for $1,000. The property included a small gasoline filling station and a home. Because this was the height of the Depression, local farmers purchased gasoline on credit for their farm equipment hoping to pay off the debt during harvest season. In the 1940s, the Jorgensen home didn’t have a telephone, so their teenaged daughters had to use the pay phone in the filling station. Vern registered for the "Old Man’s Draft" on February 16, 1942 at the age of 38.
After Federal Heights was incorporated, Vern was nominated as a Town Board trustee in March of 1944, Town Marshall in May 1944 and ran for Mayor in 1952. He and Dorothy volunteered labor and money in construction of two Latter Day Saints (LDS) chapels and funded LDS missionaries. The Federal Heights Town Hall was built in 1949. It was used for community events, town meetings, fundraisers, sock hops, etc. The Jorgensen’s original home was replaced in 1950.
In the 1950s, Dorothy belonged to the Federal Heights Women’s Club, a literary club and served as a Cub Scout leader. The Federal Heights Women’s Club met at a monthly luncheon and planned events and hosted fundraisers to benefit the community.
Vern and Dorothy’s sons-in-law worked for Vern at Cascade Oil. They also planted and harvested the wheat crop in eastern Adams County. Additional labor was hired during harvest season and Dorothy cooked meals for all of them.
Though oil was discovered on the Jorgensen’s wheat farm in the 1960s, the Jorgensens also had setbacks. Vern was taken to the Supreme Court by the Internal Revenue Service and won the case. However, the Jorgensens were audited every year for the next 17 years.
Vern and Dorothy celebrated 53 years of marriage. Dorothy passed away on March 29, 1975 and Vernon died on November 27, 1979. Both are buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheatridge, Colorado.