For most of the past, Omaha’s history has been written as if it were only wealthy white men from the East Coast who built the city and made it into what it is. However, as my website shows, there is a lot more than that. One Swedish immigrant contributed to building North Omaha for decades, carrying on his father’s tradition of serving the community and more. This is a biography of Andy Jensen (1870-1954).

Andy’s Scandinavian Parents

In 1930, the Omaha World-Herald ran an obituary for Andy Jensen’s father, Andrew Jensen (1850-1930), who arrived in Omaha as a pioneer blacksmith in 1869. A popular community leader among the Scandinavians, he was one of the first investors in the 24th and Lake business district. Originally opening shop at North 16th and Cuming Streets where the Tip Top Apartments are today, Jensen built a new shop at 2314 North 24th Street in 1880, and he and his wife Anna A Jensen (1853-1930) had seven children including a daughter, Mabel, and six sons, Albert, Charles, Fred, Emil, William and Andy. This biography is about Andy.

Building a North O Business

Andy Jensen was born in 1888 in Omaha, and grew up in the family home near 24th and Lake. His parents raised their children at 24th and Willis, originally in a house with his father’s blacksmith shop at the front. After the Easter Sunday tornado of 1913 wiped out those structures, the family rebuilt a fine new building that still stands today in 2024, more than 111 years later.

In 1904, Andy Jensen began working for the City of Omaha where he spent 16 years in the Public Improvements Department and another 20 years with the Engineering Department. In 1914, he started a laundry business in his father’s building that lasted more than a decade. Apparently, he served in the Army during World War I, leaving his City job and his business behind but returning after the war. When he got back from the war, Jensen took three years of college courses but didn’t graduate. He also married Ruth Flora Jensen (1893-1957) in 1920.

However, over the course of his time running the laundry business, he bought five buildings between his father’s and the corner of North 24th and Erskine Street and used the address 2324 North 24th Street for decades. In 1938, the Black-owned Omaha Guide newspaper reported that over the course of running his business, along with his father’s business at the same address before him, “they had employed 105 Negroes, a record for which his is proud… no committee has even been send to Andy to place colored folks; they have been on his father’s and his payroll from 1867 to 1930.”

Andy’s mother (77 years old) and father (80 years old) died in 1930. That same year, a massive robbery resulted in the loss of more than $2,000 cash and a truck from the Jensen Laundry. The same thing happened again later in the year, and combined with the death of his parents, must have been hard.

Early in 1931, Jensen estimated his company would spend $30,000 to renovate his buildings that year. Reconstructed from five wood frame and brick buildings into a single steel and metal structure, a broad frontage was installed across them, along with interior reconstruction, and new machinery installed.

Life After North O

In the middle of 1931, Andy Jensen sold his laundry company and the business was renamed Jensen-Emerson Laundry, and located in the same building. Soon after Jensen sold his interest in the company, and after acquiring another business it was renamed Emerson-Saratoga Laundry. Also after leaving the laundry business, Jensen opened a new company called the Jensen Investment Company and got into real estate sales and rentals. He stayed in that work for the rest of his life. He also ran the Andy Jensen Champion Dog Kennels for more than a decade.

When he died, the Omaha World-Herald obituary sub-heading said, “Ran for many offices, never won election.” In 1934, Jensen was the Democratic nominee for the seat of Douglas County Assessor, and in 1936 he was a candidate for Omaha City Commissioner and he ran for that office again in 1954. In 1939, he ran for Douglas County Treasurer, and in 1946 he ran for U.S. Congress. He also ran for Railway Commissioner.

Throughout his life, Jensen was a member of the American Legion and the Douglas County PTA. He was also a member of the Danish Brotherhood and the Dannebrog Lodge of the IOOF.

In 1940, he and his wife Ruth lived at 736 N. 86th St. Ruth was born in Diagonal, Iowa, and married Andy in 1920. When she died in 1957, she was buried in the Jensen family plot in the Springwell Danish Cemetery.

Andy and Ruth lived at 444 North 38th Street in the Gifford Park neighborhood when she died in 1957. Andy was remarried in 1958 to Lois M. Melcher (1889-1977).

Remembering Jensen Laundry Building

From 1933 to 1958, the business at 2324 N. 24th St. was simply called the Emerson Laundry. In 1958, the building was sold to Robert Hill and over the next several decades, it housed Hill’s Chicken in a Box, Hill’s Catering, Hill’s Employment Services and Hill’s Real Estate. In 1988, the US district court foreclosed against Robert Hill and took the property. In March of that year, the building was auctioned off. Eventually it was demolished. It took until 2003 for the City of Omaha to approve the development of Dreamland Plaza, an “urban park” located on the corner of 24th and Erskine, which was already renamed Lizzie Robinson Avenue.

Today there is no memory of Andy Jensen in North Omaha. While the building his father constructed is still standing, today there is no recognition of the Jensen family’s contributions to building the 24th and Lake business center.

You Might Like…

• A History of the Jensen Building in North Omaha
• People from North Omaha History
• A History of Scandinavians In North Omaha
• A History of the 24th and Lake Historic District in North Omaha

Elsewhere Online

• “Andrew Jensen” on Findagrave.com.