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Event
Sometime in the 1920’s, a large flash flood destroyed much of the Cross Orchards ranch and the surrounding area. Charles Buttolph, manager at the orchard at the time the flood occurred, recalled that it was sunny at the time. A cloudburst in the Bookcliffs unleashed a torrent that came from miles away, following a wash that cut north and south through the valley and through the middle of the Cross Ranch. The wash followed the route of 31 Road, which...
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Voice Recording
To mark the centennial celebration of the town of Grand Junction, Colorado in 1981, the Mesa County Oral History Project wrote and recorded several radio plays about local history. Beginning on September 26, 1981, local radio stations KSTR, KREX-AM, KREX-FM, and KMSA broadcast the plays. Authors of the plays used interviews recorded by the Mesa County Oral History Project as inspiration. This archival recording contains the play Living History in...
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Event
A Change We Need campaign speech made on September 15, 2008. According to oral history interviewee David Combs, the excitement in the audience was palpable.
*Image is the official presidential photograph of Barack Obama.
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Voice Recording
Len and Violet Haseman talk about newspaper research they undertook concerning the history of Cross Orchards farm in Mesa County, Colorado. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
*Photograph from the 1932 David Henry Hickman High School yearbook.
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Voice Recording
Madge Davis discusses her teenage years in the 1910’s working on the Cross Ranch in Mesa County, thinning peaches and packing peaches with her mom and dad. She describes fruit growing operations on the farm. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of the Mesa County Public Library and the Museum of Western Colorado.
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Voice Recording
Priscella Broderson describes life as a homemaker on an apple farm in Clifton, Colorado in the early Twentieth century. She discusses apple processing and packing, cooking on a coal stove, getting water from the Highline Canal and washing clothes. She also talks about her early life in Grand Junction, including her schooling, working at the Fair Store, and Christmas celebrations. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project,...
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Compound
Glenn McFall discusses downtown businesses and business owners in Grand Junction, Colorado, as well as the shoe store he worked at for nine years, McConnell-Lowes. Glenn also talks about the involvement of the Ku Klux Klan in the Grand Valley area, the Mesa County Pest House and Smallpox outbreaks, the social scene and where people went to go dancing, the Mesa County Fair, horse racing and gambling, bailing rowdy cowboys out of the local jail, Eddie...
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Voice Recording
Ruth Hoffman talks about her teen and young adult years spent packing fruit for Cross Orchards and other farms in Mesa County, Colorado. She describes the work involved in fruit packing, lighting smudge pots, picking fruit, the change in the kinds of jobs women did on the farm over time, and life on the farm. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of the Mesa County Public Library and the Museum of Western...
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Person
Mesa County assessor and banker. He also worked on Cross Orchards fruit farm, where he made wooden apple boxes. Uncle of Velma E. (Borschell) Budin. Brother of Edith Jaynes and son of Ezra Jaynes.
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Organization
The Red Cross Land and Fruit Company managed the Cross Orchards, located at what is now 3073 F Road in the Fruitvale area of Mesa County, Colorado. Cross Orchards was the largest fruit growing operation in the county for many years. It was founded by Isabel Cross and later owned by her younger brother, Walter Bigelow Cross. Isabel (shown living with Walter as children in Vermont in the 1860 U.S. Census), apparently bought the land on which Cross...
12) Jim Key
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Person
He worked as a foreman at Cross Orchards Ranch 1915-1916, before he entered the U.S. Armed Services during World War I. He let his sister ride to work on his bicycle handlebars.
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Voice Recording
Harold Zimmerman describes packing fruit during harvest time in the Clifton area, spraying for codling moths, the end of early apple farming in the valley, the train of wagons used to haul fruit on the Midland Trail at harvest time and about a flash flood that devastated Cross Orchards and destroyed 31 Road. He also talks about his career in bookkeeping for Mesa County Valley School District 51 and other organizations, the run on local banks during...
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Voice Recording
C.H. Buttolph describes his time working in Cross Orchards and the process of caring for a large orchard of pear trees. C.H. also describes his journey from Michigan to Colorado, and the frustration felt by fruit growers trying to exterminate the codling moth. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western Colorado and the Mesa County Historical Society.
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Voice Recording
Howard Shults talks about his career as an auctioneer in Mesa County, Colorado. He also discusses the history of people, places and businesses throughout the county, including the Cross Orchard and the Vernon Z. Reed Ranch. Shults’ wife, Helen Shults, gives her occasional insight. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western Colorado and the Mesa County Historical...
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Voice Recording
An interview with Howard Shults, a longtime resident of Mesa County who worked as an auctioneer, farmer, and member of the state land commission. He discusses the business of corralling horses, horse trading, racing horses for money, the Cross Ranch, and social events such as rodeos, fairs, and dances. He also talks about hauling coal in a horse-drawn wagon and the history of coal mines in the valley, about the history of the old fairgrounds at Lincoln...
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Person
He was the one-time owner, along with his sister, of Cross Orchards in Mesa County, Colorado. Cross Orchards was the largest fruit growing operation in the county for many years. He was born in Vermont. His father was Timothy Cross, who is listed in U.S. Census records from 1850-1870 as a tavern keeper, merchant, and retail grocer with a net worth in real estate equivalent to what would be around $100,000 today. His older sister Isabel Cross (shown...
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Person
She was born in Oklahoma to Robert W. Ramsay from Scotland and Mary E. Ramsay from Illinois. Her father was in the dry goods business. She attended Smith College in New England.
Josephine came to the Grand Junction area in November of 1920. She had been working as the YWCA national secretary (Young Woman’s Christian Association) in Denver and was sent to Grand Junction to found a local YWCA. When interest in founding a local chapter fell through,...
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Voice Recording
Lyn Lampert lectures about the Little Book Cliff Railway before a meeting of the Mesa County Historical Society (MCHS). In addition, the MCHS votes affirmatively on two resolutions to aid in the preservation of important local history sites. In the first, the MCHS votes to aid in the preservation of the Handy Chapel in Grand Junction, Colorado (the only surviving church building from the 1880s and the longtime home of the African Methodist Church)....
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Voice Recording
Josephine Biggs discusses her memories of Cross Orchards and owner “Colonel” Bill Cross, horseback riding excursions, and the LaCourt Hotel. She also talks about her work with the YWCA during a time when many young girls were “getting out of hand with all the boys coming home” from World War I, Lincoln Park and Lincoln Park School, her husband’s development of the Lincoln Park Neighborhood, and some details of the home they lived in there....
