Grand Junction (Colo.) -- History
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In a recording made for his son, Don Rogers talks about his family’s cattle ranch on Pinon Mesa in the 1910’s, about getting lost in the wilderness at the age of six, about an expert tracker named Avery Burford who led the search party, and about being found the next morning after he spent the night alone on a sandbar of East Creek. He recalls a gunfight between cowboys Louis Stewart and Blue, a shooting by a man named Pete Lapham, and tensions...
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Voice Recording
Alex Bauer talks extensively about this history of his family, part of the German community of Morganthau in Russia. He recounts their immigration to the United States in the years before the Russian Revolution. He remembers his dad’s career as a machinist for Missouri Pacific Railroad and then the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He also recounts his own career as a machinist. He speaks about his parrallel career as the shop steward International...
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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. The plays’ authors used interviews recorded by the Mesa County Oral History Project as inspiration. In this recording the listener will hear the play Charlie Glass:...
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Voice Recording
Bill Rump talks about his father Charlie Rump and his roll in developing the Redlands in Mesa County, Colorado as a member of the Redlands Company and the Redlands Water and Power Company. He recounts the efforts of those companies in creating orchards and other agricultural enterprises on the Redlands. He speaks about the Redlands School, roads, sports, youth activities, and other aspects of life on the Redlands and in Grand Junction. He remembers...
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Voice Recording
Eugene Perry talks about his childhood in Grand Junction’s Riverside neighborhood. He speaks about working for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad from the time he was thirteen years old, his career building track as a section foreman, and the history of D&RG in Grand Junction. He discusses landmarks such as Bowman’s slaughterhouse, the Pest House, and the town’s ice houses. He reminisces about a youth curfew that was in place in Grand Junction...
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Voice Recording
David Combs talks about growing up in a diverse neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He discusses school segregation, and the difficulties he and other African-Americans faced in securing a good education at the high school level. He speaks about attending the University of South Dakota on a football scholarship, his experience as a Black person in a place with few other African-Americans, and stereotypes about Black athletes that he encountered...
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Voice Recording
William Ela talks about his family’s arrival in the Little Dolores River area of Mesa County in 1881 and their establishment of the 2-V Ranch. He tells stories about his grandfather, the pioneer rancher and Grand Junction town mayor William Phillips Ela. He remembers his grandfather’s horse Looney and his escapades. He speaks about the dangers of travel to and from Glade Park in the early days. He recalls stories passed down about his ancestors’...
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Voice Recording
Nora McGinley Flynn discusses her experience growing up in the Grand Valley in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, her career as one of Mesa County's early schoolteachers, her family’s involvement with the founding of Grand Junction, and her family’s various employment positions with the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and...
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Voice Recording
Molly (Dean) Stucker talks about the life of her grandfather, pioneer photographer Frank Dean, and his relationship with and photographs of Ute people. She also recalls the life of her father, early Grand Junction photographer Preston Dean. Interviewer Al Look remembers visiting what is now called the Moab Mammoth or Moab Mastodon, a petroglyph near Moab that appears to be an ancient Native American painting of woolly mammoth, with Preston Dean. Look...
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Compound
Ann Stokes talks about homesteading on East Orchard Mesa after her family moved to Mesa County, Colorado in 1904. She remembers her father working on the “fancy” masonry for the Grand Junction train station. She recalls living in a one-room log cabin and sharing that cabin with a horse for an evening. She speaks about the development of irrigation on East Orchard Mesa and her father’s peach orchard. She describes walking with her siblings four...
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Compound
Oscar Jaynes discusses childhood memories of Clifton, Colorado, including life on his family’s homestead, a time he climbed inside a giant tire and rolled down a desert hill, and a boxing match at school with future Colorado Supreme Court justice Jim Groves. He then relates tales of traveling the country on freight cars trying to find work during the Great Depression. Oscar also talks a great deal about the fruit business, specifically the peach...
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Compound
In a two-part interview carried out over two days, Howard Shults talks about his experiences as a rancher and auctioneer on Colorado’s Western Slope. In part one, he talks about the arrival of his parents in Mesa County in 1903, their teaching careers at Pear Park and in Fruita, and his father’s move to a career as an auctioneer. He speaks about his childhood in Grand Junction and Collbran, his graduation from Grand Junction High School in 1923,...
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Voice Recording
Early Grand Junction resident Ruth Larson describes her life as a teacher and principal in Mesa County schools. 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
Frosty Tilton describes his career as a banker in Palisade and Grand Junction, Colorado. He talks about bank closures and runs on banks during the Great Depression, the economic impact of the peach industry, and the history of local fruit grower cooperatives. 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.
*Photo...
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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...
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Voice Recording
Frank Simonetti Sr. talks about his arrival in the United States from southern Italy in 1914 and his eventual arrival in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1918, where he began a long career with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He remembers a fire that burnt down the D&RG icehouse, the railroad shop strike in 1922, and working a seven-day work week for thirty years. He recalls different kinds of locomotives. Angela Simonetti recalls growing up in the...
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Voice Recording
Jennie Dixon describes her early life and family history, including interactions with Native Americans and her parents’ lives before living in Mesa County, Colorado. She discusses working as a professional printer for newspapers, and her short stint working at the Fair Store as a “floorwalker,” where she would shop undercover to catch shoplifters. Jennie also provides information on restaurants around Main Street in Grand Junction, local artist...
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Voice Recording
Lee (who remains anonymous) talks about leaving his abusive grandmother at 14, being on the lam with his father, a criminal, and then running away after being adopted by a nice Mormon family. He describes his years of alcoholism, petty crime and jail time, both in and out of the armed forces. He then describes the people and organizations that helped him get clean and sober, including Alcoholics Anonymous of Grand Junction and the Ft. Logan Mental...
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Compound
Patrick Metoyer talks about negotiating with the Veterans Administration Hospital on his father's behalf and how this led to his cofounding of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Veterans Network, to his broader work as a veterans' mental health activist in Mesa County and nationally, and to his father's eventual turnaround. He also reads some of his poetry, discusses his beginnings as an artist and a poet, and goes into his participation in the...
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Voice Recording
Rufus Hirons talks about his education in Grand Junction schools, and about teachers and school district employees (including his father, Walter Hirons). He also touches on the Fruita to Grand Junction Interurban line, sheep ranching with his grandfather, and local Italian Americans. 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...
