Business enterprises -- Colorado
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Voice Recording
In a general meeting of the Mesa County Historical Society, Armand de Beque describes the history of oil shale development in De Beque and the Piceance Basin, Colorado. He offers three stories for how it was discovered that oil shale can burn. He describes the founding of the Shale Oil Syndicate, an organization founded by his father, Dr. W.A.E. de Beque, William R. Warren, George Newton, and William Dinkel. He explains the lengthy process the Shale...
Format:
Compound
Penelope Eberhart talks about her father Harry Brown’s introduction to oil shale while on a family vacation in Denver in the 1920’s, his subsequent move to the De Beque area on the Western Slope, and his early business venture in oil shale with the Index Oil Shale Company. She speaks about the mining and milling process for shale, and about a biproduct of the milling process marketed as plant fertilizer called Index Soil Vitalizer. She talks about...
Format:
Compound
In this recording, Alta Nolan reads the memoirs of Cordelia Files. Files talks about the history of her parents and maternal grandparents who homesteaded in the Fruita, Colorado area in the 1890’s. She describes the fruit growing operation on the homestead. She recounts seeing the Ute people and Chipeta when they came in the fall to dry fruit from the orchard. She remembers early Fruita, with its dirt streets and plank sidewalks. She speaks about...
Format:
Voice Recording
Loyd Files talks about his early life in Kansas, moving to Colorado with his family via covered wagon in 1914, and the process of filing for a homestead. He remembers homesteading with his parents in Lamar, Colorado, and with his brother in Glade Park in 1920. He recalls working on the crew that built the Serpents Trail over the Colorado National Monument, meeting John Otto, and helping build Rimrock Drive over the Monument. He speaks about his marriage...
Format:
Voice Recording
Frank Simonetti Jr. talks about the arrival of his Italian immigrant parents in Grand Junction, Colorado, about his school days at the Whitman and St. Joseph’s School, and about the history of the downtown area. He speaks about working for the Citizens Finance Company for many years and about Melvin “Pappy” Due, a founding member and longtime president of the company. He describes what it was like to work for a financing and insurance company...
Format:
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...
