Colorado -- Social life and customs
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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...
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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 Christmas Memories,...
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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...
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Glenn McFall talks about his various jobs around Mesa County and about witnessing the unveiling of Christo’s Valley Curtain installation in Rifle Gap. He also discusses fishing and battling snow storms on the Grand Mesa, the deer population around Mesa County, his experiences during childhood growing up in Clifton, the old Midland Trail automobile route, drinking and making bootleg whiskey, Italian-Americans making bootleg wine, the Book Cliff Railway,...
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Ann Stokes talks about her father-in-law Walter Stokes and his involvement in Nineteenth century labor strife as a union coal miner in Colorado. She describes his establishment of the Stokes Mine after he moved to Mesa County and describes the mine’s operations. She speaks about early phone service in Palisade. She discusses her mom’s job as a nurse in rural areas, which included tasks like housecleaning, cooking, and sewing baby clothes for new...
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Mary Cox talks about her education at the Bryant School and elsewhere in Grand Junction, about corsets and other aspects of school fashion, the history of the Riverside Neighborhood, attending community dances and Glenwood Springs’ Strawberry Days, and boys swimming in the Colorado River. She also discusses old downtown businesses, going to movies at the Majestic Theater, a brothel that advertised at the Mesa County Fairgrounds during a baseball...
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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
Frieda Miller talks about her pioneer ranching family’s arrival in Palisade, Colorado, and about the exploits of her colorful father, Eben “Mac” Miller. She speaks about her school days in Palisade and Grand Junction, and about childhood games she played (such as Duck on a Rock). She discusses her later life and marriage with farmer and carpenter George Weaver, and her long period as a vegetarian. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County...
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Anna E. Craig discusses her upbringing in Mesa, Colorado, including her social experiences, her father’s life as one of the few doctors in the area, the Mesa County Fair, her holiday rituals, methods of preserving food, and what it was like to own a hotel in Mesa. She also talks about an instance in the 1890’s when hundreds of sheep were driven over a cliff by cattle ranchers on the Grand Mesa, and other strife between cattle and sheep ranchers....
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Robert Gustafson talks about the Wisemen’s Club, a Mesa County social and charitable organization to which he belonged in the 1930’s and 1940’s. He remembers the local dance halls and the big bands that played them. He describes growing up in a Swedish portion of the Globeville neighborhood in Denver, his educational background, and how he began working at the Public Service Company at the age of fourteen. He discusses his subsequent career...
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Bessie Jane Milholland talks about her childhood growing up on a ranch in Molina, Colorado and how her family earned a living selling butter and other dairy goods. She describes trips to Grand Junction in horse and buggy, trading and selling handmade goods, and her education at the rural Molina School. She talks about her eventual move to Grand Junction after marrying her husband, Danford Wheeler, their life there, and the tasks of a homemaker. She...
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Voice Recording
Laird Smith talks about his grandfather Frank Smith’s severe case of Tuberculosis that caused the doctor to move with his family to Grand Junction, Colorado. He describes the apartment next to a saloon where the family lived on Main Street, where drunken men would sometimes crawl in through the windows by mistake. He discusses his father Silmon Smith’s “spartan” upbringing, his camping alone on the Grand Mesa for long stretches when he was...
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Voice Recording
Bill Callahan, Creston Bailey, and James Shaw discuss the history of early Twentieth century Grand Junction. The three men talk about their fathers: Thomas F. Callahan, the owner of Callahan’s Mortuary (now Callahan-Edfast); Dwight B. Bailey, the owner of the D.B. Bailey grocery store; and James Scott Shaw, a rancher, miner, and owner of the Midland Garage. They talk about Main Street businesses, including Sampliner’s. They remember the wagons...
