J. V. Geiger, of Mesa county, with an attractive home on a productive and well cultivated ranch sixteen miles southeast of Grand Junction and in the vicinity of Whitewater, is a native of Pennsylvania, and was born on December 9, 1860. His parents were Andrew and Mary (Mott) Geiger, natives of Germany, where their forefathers had lived for generations before them. They emigrated to the United States not many years after their marriage and settled in Pennsylvania, where they passed the remainder of their days, the mother dying in 1886, at the age of fifty-five, and the father in 1887, at that of sixty-seven. Their son passed his boyhood at Williamsport in his native state, and was educated in the public schools of that progressive city. About the age of eighteen he started in life for himself, coming west to Missouri, and after remaining in that state about six months, moving to the neighborhood of Leavenworth, Kansas, and there engaging in farming for a year. He next came to Fort Collins in this state, and worked in the stone quarries there about six months, then went to New Mexico where he was employed for a year in railroad construction work. At the end of that time he returned to Colorado, and after spending about four years in prospecting, he bought the ranch on which he now resides and which has ever since been his home. To the cultivation and improvement of this property he has devoted himself with care and industry, and he has made his labor pay in the increased productiveness and value of his land and the greater comfort and attractiveness of his buildings. He is a progressive and far-seeing man and works with system toward his desired ends. In 1894 he was married to Miss Minnie Virden and they have four children, Frank, Mary, Gertrude and Annie. Born and reared in the East, and having lived for a number of years in the middle and farther West, Mr. Geiger has a comprehensive knowledge of the extent and wealth of our country, and to its interests he is earnestly devoted, giving especially to his own section his best aid in its advancement.
Source: Bowen, A. W. Progressive Men of Western Colorado. Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1905.