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Voice Recording
Carl Forsman, the son of Swedish immigrants, talks about early life in the town of Mesa, Colorado. 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.
22) John Brown
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Person
A freighter who came from Texas and homesteaded in the Collbran area. According to oral history interviewee Anna (Barker) Foster, John Brown was one of the first settlers in the town of Mesa. He came to the area around 1882 while he was hauling freight between Texas and Montana. On his way from Delta to Collbran, he chanced to see a valley where the town of Mesa is now, and settled there. He donated land for the first school building. He married Elnora...
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Person
She was born to Clarence N. Barker and Frances May Carol (Crowell) Barker in Paola, Kansas. Her father was a farmer. Her mother was a homemaker. The 1900 US Census shows Anna living wither her father, who is listed as a widower, at the age of fifteen.
She taught school for five years in Kansas and then was hired by Dr. A.R. Craig to teach school in Mesa in 1908. She was lured to the area by an increase in pay. Because paper money was scarce, she...
24) Carl Forsman
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Person
He was born to Swedish immigrants in Palisade, Colorado, and moved to near the town of Mesa in 1918. His family lived on a homestead about five miles outside of town. He walked two miles to a school in Plateau Canyon. It was a one room school house with one teacher and 8 children. He worked on his parents’ farm, later as a ranch hand, and then as a shipping clerk.
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Person
She was born to John B. Robinson and Bertha (Brandt) Robinson in the town of Mesa on the Grand Mesa. Her mother died due to complications of the birth. She was raised by Arthur and Mati Johnson. Arthur was a farmer and the son of Swedish and Danish immigrants. Mati was a homemaker. The 1920 US Census shows the family living east of the town of Mesa, when Bertha was eleven. She worked as a clerk in the Lee Prewett Store.
While a teenager, she suffered...
26) A.R. Craig
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Person
Dr. A.R. Craig was president of the Mesa School District 25 in Mesa, Colorado in the early 1900's. According to the article "History rides tall on Lloyd ranch," Craig was a physician who operated a hospital from his home, a frame house on the "old Gasaway place" (Daily Sentinel, May 18, 1975). The Sentinel also states that Craig was the first physician in the Mesa Creek Valley. He hired Anna (Barker) Foster from Kansas for a teaching position in 1908....
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Person
An early 20th century resident of Mesa County's Hunter District and of the Appleton area. She appears to have been born in England as Ana Jane Renwick to parents James Douglass Renwick and Mary Renwick. The 1891 England Census, taken when Nancy was not yet one year old, lists her father’s profession as Fruiterer. Immigration records show that she arrived in Canada with family members in 1906, at the age of sixteen. The family emigrated to the United...
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Voice Recording
Anna Foster talks about teaching at the Mesa School, beginning in 1908. She remembers some of the teachers and students at the school, and going sledding with them for fun. She speaks about the role of the Mesa’s Methodist church in providing community for people of all Christian faiths. She describes stagecoaches that delivered between towns, traveling the old Hogback Road from Palisade, and the building of the Plateau Canyon Road. She recalls...
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Person
He was born to Sidney Lloyd and Jessie Irene (Knusen) Lloyd in Palisade, Colorado. His parents came from Overland, Kansas and settled in Palisade in 1887. His father was a fruit farmer and, reputedly, a horse trader. His mother was a homemaker. Dick had two brothers: Merle and Sidney.
His family moved frequently. The 1910 US Census shows the family living in Goshen, Utah on a fruit farm, when Dick was two. According to the article, “History rides...
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Person
Mesa Lakes Resort founder and ski area pioneer. He was born in Colorado to Julian R. Sisac and Amanda Elizabeth (Ross) Sisac. The 1900 Census shows Roy as fourteen years old and living with his parents in the town of Mesa, Colorado, where his dad’s occupation was listed as farmer.
He married Ida Foster on December 29, 1909, and the 1910 Census shows them living and farming in Mesa. By 1920 they had moved to Grand Junction, where they owned a...
31) Ezra D. Stewart
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Person
He was born in Illinois to George W. Stewart and Phebe Ann (Burns) Stewart. His father was a farmer and his mother was a homemaker. US Census records show the family living in Trivoli, Illinois in 1870, when Ezra was seven years old. Phebe Stewart died in 1872. Illinois marriage records show that George Stewart subsequently remarried to Susan Kimsey in 1874.
According to the 1880 US Census, the family was still living in Trivoli when Ezra was 19....
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Person
He was born in Palisade, Colorado to Roy Raymond Sisac and Ida L. (Foster) Sisac. He grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado and in the town of Mesa. The 1920 US Census shows the family living at 719 N. 6th Street, when Russel was 8 years old. At that time, his father and uncle owned and operated a grocery store at 2nd Street and Colorado Avenue. His father also ranched.
He graduated from Grand Junction High School in 1930. While in school her participated...
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Compound
Dick Lloyd talks about cattle ranching in Western Colorado both before and after the Taylor Grazing Act, about moving cattle around to different grazing areas in Colorado, and about shipping them to Denver by rail via the De Beque Stockyard. He speaks about training horses and using horses to herd cattle. Bertha Lloyd discusses her courtship with Dick, their chivaree and their marriage. The two of them describe homesteading in a log cabin on the Grand...
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Postcard
Color photo of Durango, Colorado. Mountain range can be seen in background.
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Voice Recording
Abandoned buildings, mine camps, and towns, oh my! Librarian Ike shares the secret past of Mesa County Ghost Towns. Librarian Noel discusses the re-initiation of the Oral History Project, a partnership with the Museums of Western Colorado, and the rich local history available at Mesa County Libraries!
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Voice Recording
Edith Sisac talks about growing up in the Pomona area of Mesa County, attending the Pomona School, and riding her bike to Grand Junction High School along the railroad tracks in the early Twentieth century. She recalls the grocery store in Grand Junction owned by Roy Sisac, her husband’s father. She speaks about the Mesa Lakes Resort and the Mesa Lakes Ski Run, which were owned and operated by the Sisac and Foster families, and about the development...
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Voice Recording
In an interview from May 14, 1981 (audio only, no transcript), Basil T. Knight talks about his youth in Michigan, meeting his wife’s family in Palisade, Colorado and ultimately moving there, operating a fruit farm, and becoming a lifelong teacher and school administrator. He explains the mechanisms that originally funded the many smaller school districts on the Western Slope, including taxes on railroads, and the reasons for the consolidation that...
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Voice Recording
Craig Aupperle talks about Grand Junction, Colorado’s first cemeteries, funeral houses, and mortuaries. He also gives an account of pioneer funeral rites and ceremonies, including burials led by horse-drawn buggies. He then discusses the locations of early roads, including the Rhone Creek Toll Road from Mesa County to Glenwood Springs, and the Hogback Road to Plateau Valley. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a...
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Voice Recording
Clem Goettelman explains his time as an employee for The Daily Sentinel under Preston Walker as the publisher. He discusses his position as a union leader before the Typographical Union Strike, conflicts within the work environment, Walter Walker’s involvement with and subsequent opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, and The Daily Sentinel being one of the only papers in the country to quickly cover President Theodore Roosevelt’s death with a full...
Format:
Compound
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....
