Carl Thomas Lauritsen Jorgensen was born on 12. Oct. 1902 at Willow Creek, Wyoming. He married
Rachel McConaghy Buckles, daughter of
Henry Edward Buckles and
Sarah Ellen McConaghy, on 2. Jul. 1930 at Green River, Sweetwater County, Wyoming. Carl Thomas Lauritsen Jorgensen died on 20. Feb. 1988 at Pinedale, Sublette County, Wyoming, at age 85. Carl Thomas Lauritsen Jorgensen was born October 12, 1902 on his fathers ranch, on Willow Creek, west of Pinedale, Wyoming. He was the forth child born to Nels and Karen Lauritsen Jorgensen. Carl had three brothers and three sisters, George, James, Hans,(Hanna or Karin), Carrie, and Laurita. A sister (Hanna or Karin) and a brother Hans died soon after birth.
Carl attended school in Pinedale, Wyoming, receiving his diploma in 1918. He then attended the University of Wyoming.
Carl married Rachel McConaghy Buckles, on July 2, 1930, in Green River, Wyoming. Carl with a twinkle in his eye used to say, "We had our honeymoon on the 3rd, celebrated the 4th with firecrackers, and there's been fireworks around here ever since."
In the early 1930's Carl, like his father before him, tried his hand at dairy farming: "I bought some Guernsey milk cows with a view to marketing cream. But the price paid for butter-fat went way down. It got so low we churned the cream ourselves and used the butter to grease the farm machinery and the wheels of the wagons. Butter was cheaper than axle grease."
Carl disgusted with this state of affairs traded his Guernsey cows for some Hereford range cattle. In 1931, using this cattle as collateral, he borrowed money to buy what was known as the "Alv Thompson place" on Boulder Creek. Meanwhile, in 1941 he bought a place on the New Fork River, west of Pinedale. Carl moved his family to the place on the New Fork River in 1943.. He sold the Thompson place in 1944.
The Jorgensens like practically every other ranch family in Wyoming, had exceedingly rough going during the drought and the depression years of the 1930's. In the summer of 1934, the entire state of Wyoming was designated a "drought area." Carl Jorgensen received an appointment to assist in the selection, purchase, and disposition of "drought cattle" in Sublette County. He engaged in this work from July, 1934 to January, 1935, at the same time living on and working his Boulder Creek Ranch. There wasn't much ranching to do that year. Many Sublette County ranchmen didn't even pull their haying machinery out of the shed. There wasn't any hay to harvest. The meadows dried up and turned red.
Carl Jorgensen observed that trailing cattle from the Pinedale country to the railhead at Opal and Rock Springs persisted well into the 1930's when "trucking began to take over." He has personal memories of the cattlemen-sheepmen trouble in west central Wyoming: "I recall my mother baking bread and cooking big roasts of meat all one day when I was five or six years old. Along toward evening thirty men rode up to our cabin, Mother fed them. These men wanted my father to ride with them. He said, 'I will go with you under one condition: that there isn't any violence "
"The men, including my father, rode into the night. The following day they and other cattlemen turned back two hundred sheep wagons that were coming into the New Fork and the East Fork country. The cattlemen established a deadline from the mouth of the Fontenelle to the Buckskin Crossing of the Big Sandy. They plowed a furrow the entire distance, and further marked the deadline by erecting stone monuments ten or fifteen feet high on knolls along the route."
Carl Jorgensen is a past president of the Green River Valley Cattlemen's Association. He is a permittee on the National Forest Reserve and he is dead set against the proposal to fence forest grazing land into pastures and to rotate those "pastures". "It would tend to bunch the cattle to much. If the ground happened to be wet where they bunched, this very well could result in foot-rot. The cattle would be much better off dispersed over the allotment for the full grazing season-and so would the grazing ground. As far as the forest land is concerned, this 'rotation theory' is just that-the brain child of theorists that won't work out in practice."
Carl's cattle operation, involving some 800 head of commercial cattle, was pretty much of a family affair. The cattle run on the Forest during the grazing season. With the help of family, Carl annually puts up about 1,100 tons of hay. "I used to put up around 2,000 tons and in haying season, hired twenty men and used eighty head of horses. But after the migratory labor dried up, we just baled our hay merely put it into windrows and baled from the windrows."
Carl Jorgensen's first assignment with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association was on the Game and Wildlife Committee. When the Wyoming Beef Council was formed in 1957, he served as its first chairman. He was chairman of the Resolutions Committee in 1959, and again in 1966. In 1961 he represented Wyoming cattlemen in testifying against Senate Bill No 174--the so called "Wilderness Bill.' Carl Jorgensen reports that his greatest concern during the two years he was Association President, the thing that caused him the most trouble, was the duplicity of U. S. Department of the Interior and the U. S. Forest Service officials who fail to live up to the agreements they made. "The employees of the federal agencies have no financial stake in what happens. Many of them are disinterested, just working to draw their pay, many of them have no conception of what running livestock entails on the part of stockmen."
In 1944 Carl Jorgensen ran for the Wyoming House of Representatives from Sublette County on the Democratic ticket. His Republican opponent was Norman Barlow, who beat him by only one vote. As a result of his political activity, Wyoming Govenor Lester C. Hunt, on February 17, 1945 appointed Carl to the Wyoming State Game and Fish Commission. He was subsequently was re-appointed for a second four year term.
Carl was a controversial figure on the Fish and Game Commission. It seems that the Pinedale Lion's Club undertook to further a program to acquisition by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department with a view to making Sublette County more attractive to Tourists. "I was against this in principle, against more private property passing into the hands of government agencies," Carl reports. When he, as a member of the Game and Fish Commission, publicly expressed his opposition to the proposal, the Pinedale Lions Club circulated a petition aimed at getting him fired from the Commission, and presented it to Governor Hunt. But Governor Hunt stood by his appointee.
Carl represented Sublette County and Teton County on the Game Commission. Both are big game counties. Those fellows in Teton County thought he was doing a good job. They are the ones who got him reappointed to the Game and Fish Commission for a second term. Carl served as President for the last two years he was on it.
The people of Teton County were not the only Wyomingites impressed by Carl Jorgensen's candor. The stand he took against further acquisition of private land by governmental agencies, brought him to the favorable attention of livestock men throughout the State.
In February, 1968 , Carl Jorgensen as President of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, met with the other officers and with the Historical Committee in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Subsequently they entered into a contract with Author John Rolfe Burroughs to write the Association's centennial history.
Most of this information was taken from The Guardian of the Grasslands interview done with Carl Thomas Lauritsen Jorgensen, July 28, 1969, by John Rolfe Burroughs.
Rachel was born August 12, 1911, in Flagstaff, Arizona. We used to tease her about not being born in the United States. Arizona, was made a state in 1912. She was the daughter of Henry Edward Buckles, and Sarah Ellen McConaghy.
Carl and Rachel Jorgensen had three children.
Carl Ray Jorgensen was born May 14, 1931, in Rock Springs, Wyoming. He married Mary Caroline Brookshire, July 9, 1960 in Rawlins, Wyoming. They have five children, two girls, and three boys. Julie Ellen, Nels Howard, Carl Edward, Carol Marie, and Scott Ray.
Margie Lareen Jorgensen was born January 2, 1934, in Rock Springs, Wyoming. She married James Monroe Thomas, June 3, 1954, in Pinedale, Wyoming. They have four children, Joslyn Rae, Kevin James, Brett Lee, and Lisa Renee.
Nancy Lee Jorgensen was born May 19, 1941, in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
She married Max Golden Carter, May 27, 1960, in Salt Lake City, Utah. They have two children, Shayne Max and Daniel Lee.
Carl Jorgensen served as the first President of the Green River Cattlemans Association, also served as president of the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association. He was also a member of The American National Cattlemens Association. He has been a member of the Board of Directors and chairman of brands and theft committee of the American National Cattlemens Association. Carl Jorgensen was the first president of the Wyoming Beef Council, which he helped organize. He served as Water Commissioner of District No. 7, in Sublette County, and served on the Boulder District School Board for eight years. He served for eight years on the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, both as Vice President and as President. Carl was a 32 degree Mason, Past Master of Franklin Blue Lodge No. 7, A member of the Royal Arch Commandery, Consistory, and Shrine. Past Associate Guardian of Job's Daughters. Carl Jorgensen was inducted into the Northern International Stock Show Hall of Fame in Billings, Montana, on October 20, 1976.
Rachel Jorgensen was a member of the Congregational Church, The Eastern Star, The Cow Belles of Sublette County, the Cow Belles Auxiliary of the Wyoming Stockgrowers, Past Guardian of Job's Daughters.
Rachel died January 5, 1982, in Green River, Wyoming. Carl died February 21, 1988, in Pinedale, Wyoming. Carl and Rachel are buried in the family plot in the cemetery in Pinedale, Wyoming.
Carl Jorgensen had an active part in the development of the ranching industry in the state of Wyoming, he was considered one of the outstanding ranchers of the state.
[Brøderbund Family Archive #110, Vol. 1, Ed. 4, Social Security Death Index: U.S., Social Security Death Index, Surnames from A through L, Date of Import: Mar 18, 1997, Internal Ref. #1.111.4.121037.43]
Individual: Jorgensen, Carl
Birth date: October 12, 1902
Death date: February 21, 1988
Social Security
Last residence: : 82941
State of issue: WY
Obituary of Carl Thomas Lauritsen Jorgensen
February 21, 1988
CARL JORGENSEN, 85 DIES,
Services for Carl Thomas Lauritsen Jorgensen, 85 of Pinedale, are scheduled for Friday, February 26, 1988 at 2 P.M. in the Community Hall in Pinedale, Wyoming, with Pinedale Franklin No. 31 A.F. & A.M. officiating.
Mr. Jorgensen died February 20, 1988, at the Retirement Center in Pinedale, Wyoming. He was born October 12, 1902 on the Jorgensen home place in Pinedale to Nel and Karen Lauritsen Jorgensen, immigrants from Denmark. They were married in Green River, Wyoming, in 1894.
Carl was married to Rachel McConaghy Buckles on July 2, 1930 in Green River, Wyoming. His wife of 51 years preceded him in death in January of 1982.
Carl was first president of the Green River Valley Cattlemen's Association, past president of Wyoming Stockgrowers Association and a member of the American National Cattlemen's Association. He was voted Livestock Man of the Year by International Livestock Exposition (NILE) in Billings, Montana. He was first president of the Wyoming Beef Council. Carl served eight years on the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission as both president and vice president.
Carl was a life member of Franklin Lodge A.F. & A.M. and past master; past High Priest of Pinedale Chapter No 21 Royal Arch Masons; a member of Commandery, Consistory and Shrine; past associate guardian of Job's Daughters.
Carl was employed in ranching all of his life near Pinedale and Big Piney, Wyoming. He also leased property and pastured cattle in several other parts of Wyoming, (Riverton, and Thermopolis, Wyoming). He received his diploma from Pinedale schools in 1918 and later attended the University of Wyoming.
Survivors are three children, Carl Ray (Bud) Jorgensen, Margie Thomas of Big Piney, Wyoming, and Nancy Carter, of Riverton, Utah; 12 grandchildren, Julie Lee, Nels, Carl and Scott Jorgensen, Carol Jones, Joslyn White, Kevin and Brett Thomas, Lisa Copeland, Kenny and Shayne Carter; three step-grandchildren, Dave Carter, Goldie Childs, and Rockie Ivie; Two great-grandchildren Ryan and Erin Lee; two sisters Mrs Carrie Murdock of Pinedale, and Mrs Laurita Baldwin, of Laramie.
He was preceded on death by his wife, grandson Danny Carter; parents, three brothers, George, James, and Hans; and a baby sister.
Burial will be in the Pinedale, Wyoming cemetery.