Around 1945, Jorgen Jorgensen started a Medford, Ore., dairy business on North Riverside Drive that produced milk, ice cream, cottage cheese and butter.
Jorgensen was known as a fair man who paid his employees well and gave bonuses at Thanksgiving and Christmas. But he wasn’t one for waste and would remind his bookkeeper, “You watch the dollars and I’ll watch the pennies.” When he drove a shiny new Cadillac to work, one of his employees admired it, so he offered his keys to take a spin.
In the mid-1950s, Jorgensen’s Dairy had more than a hundred wholesale accounts. Most of the milk used at the dairy came from Jackson County farms. The milk products were delivered to local stores with lunch counters, such as Woolworths and Newberrys, or local groceries and restaurants, such as Groceteria, Eastside Market, and Brown’s Club.
Jorgensen served as president of the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, and his dairy sponsored the popular Hopalong Cassidy show on KBES-TV in Medford.
Jorgensen sold the plant to Mayflower in 1967, which sold it to Darigold, which closed the dairy last month.
Sources: “Medford News 1952.” idmind.net Ed. Tina Truwe. 21 Feb 2010. Web. 16 Feb. 2015; Stiles, Greg. “Medford dairy plant serves the west.” www.MailTribune.com 14 Mar. 2002. Web. 16 Feb. 2015; “Who’s Buying What Where?” https://books.google.com. Billboard., 14 May 1955. Web. 18 Feb. 2020.
