Biography of Lorenzo Hansen: 12th Mayor of Logan
Dates in Office:1902-1904
Terms in Office: 1
Age when Elected: 44
Lorenzo Hansen was born 1 December 1858 in Brigham City, Utah the son of Christian Hansen and Elizabeth Ericksen of Denmark. He married Ann Maria Robbins Mitton December 11, 1879 in Logan, Utah and they had three children. He died 21 March 1949 in Logan, Utah and is buried in the Logan Cemetery.[1]
Lorenzo Hansen, after attending the public schools of Brigham City, took up the occupation of farming, which he followed in connection with his father. At the age of 12 he went to work in a cooperative cheese plant which his father built and managed in 1870. Because of this apprenticeship, he later became the founder of Cache Valley's dairy industry. In the spring of 1877 Mr. Hansen came to Logan to work his father's donation on the Logan temple. Later he was hired by Box Elder County to work on the structure for four years. He assisted in laying all the corner stones and later was put in charge of piecing all the sandstone window sills and the water tables and abutments.
Mr. Hansen was a member of the board of trustees of the Utah State Agricultural College for ten years from 1896 to 1906. He was a member of the building committee and was the moving power behind construction of the college's large cow barn and the sheep sheds, as well as the completion of the Main building. Mr. Hansen had a power of initiative and a desire to build. During the war, with its scarcity of automobile tires, he won national notice by building a tire of wood.
In 1914 he was active in plans for raising money for the construction of the Budge Hospital and he served on the hospital board, first as vice president and later as president, until the hospital was purchased by the LDS church.[2]
For about eight years, starting in 1881, Mr. Hansen ran a freight line from Corinne to Butte, Montana. But he had a desire to get back into the dairy business. In 1889 he became the pioneer in the creamery business of Utah, being the first to buy milk and sell through the usual channels of the creamery trade. He established four creameries at different locations in the state and built up a business of extensive proportions. In 1903 he erected a large condensed milk plant at Logan, which in 1911 he sold to the Borden Condensed Milk Company. After he sold the business to the Borden Company, he stayed on as supervisor for 25 years. Through his activities he demonstrated the possibilities for success in connection with the creamery business in Utah and his example was profitably followed by many others.
The creameries, which he established, offered an excellent market to dairy farmers for their milk and he was the pioneer of Utah in the manufacture of butter. The plant where he was the superintendent was one which excited the admiration and interest of all who visited it. It was equipped with the most modern machinery for handling dairy and creamery products, was a splendid chemical laboratory for making tests of butter fats and was supplied with machinery for forcing the water out of milk and with other machines for canning, labeling, boxing, etc. There were six different railway tracks into the plant, which handled a thousand cases of condensed milk daily, with forty-eight cans to the case. The company manufactured its own boxes and every feature of the business was the expression of the last word in connection with the conduct of a creamery. The utmost cleanliness prevailed in every department, sanitary conditions being ever made a most important feature of the business. Mr. Hansen sold the plant to the Borden Condensed Milk Company with the expectation of retiring, but the corporation insisted upon him remaining as manager.
He also took up dry farming and his operations along that line place him in the position of leadership among the dry farmers of Utah, he owned fourteen hundred acres of farm land and in addition had one thousand acres of pasture land in Box Elder County. In 1915 he raised nineteen thousand bushels of wheat. His activities constituted a potent element in the development of this part of the state.
His political endorsement is given to the Republican Party and he is one of the recognized leaders in its ranks in Utah, his opinions carrying great weight in local councils of the party. In 1902 - 1904 he served as mayor of Logan and the city has never enjoyed a more beneficial or progressive administration. He established the Logan municipal electric light plant and was instrumental in the erection of the Utah-Idaho Hospital in Logan.
Mr. Hansen belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was a member of the Cache Stake High Council 1900 to 1906. He was a man of progressive spirit, ruled by more than ordinary intelligence and good judgement. In him there was a deep earnestness impelled and fostered by indomitable perseverance and combined with a native justice that expressed itself in correct principles and practice.[3]
[1] Family Group Record (FamilySearch Ancestral File v4.19)
[2] Obituary, The Herald-Journal, Logan Utah, Tuesday March 22, 1949.
[3] Warrum Noble, ed., Utah Since Statehood: Historical and Biographical (Chicago : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1919) 4:354-358
