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Bob Klenda, an accomplished saddle maker, talks in detail about the craft of saddlery and about the utility of different saddle types. He recounts how he got his beginning in the craft. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado. *Note: Transcripts have been machine-created and do contain inaccuracies. In time, each transcript will be audited...
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Adam is the best thing to happen to the 970West Studio. Change my mind. But for real, learn how to use the 970West Studio for free! Librarian Ike is back and a little too secretive about Dolores Cave. Learn more about local archeology findings in the Rashleigh Regional History Room!
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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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Warren Kiefer talks about his career as a fireman and engineer on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, and working the line between Grand Junction, Colorado and Salt Lake City. He gives specifics about the technical aspects of the fireman position on a steam locomotive. He speaks about the relationship between the fireman and the engineer, and tells stories about comical and contentious interactions between different workers. He explains the purpose...
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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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What are you doing while you're "docked" at home? Our staff are playing video games! Join Bethany, Emmi, Logan, Cheyanna, and Riley as they share their favorite things about Animal Crossings. Josh shares what he loves the most about Doom! We hope you will remain "docked" in your homes and enjoy the online resources Mesa County Libraries provides during this time. Enjoy weekly episodes of DOCKED with brief updates from Michelle on how the library plans...
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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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Helen Johnson talks about gardening, methods of preserving food, and other aspects of rural life in Hotchkiss, Colorado in the early Twentieth century. She talks about her mother, Emily (Scatliff) Young, and the jobs she took to support the family after the loss of their life savings due to her father’s bad investment. She discusses the family’s religious observances and the history of churches in Hotchkiss. She talks about her abusive father-in-law...
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Bethany and David interview our new Library Director, Michelle Boisvenue-Fox! Team Awesome, library staff in charge of Comic Con, discuss all things Comic Con 2019!
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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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Carl Gesberg talks about his experience farming with horses as opposed to machine-based farming. He explains the day in the life of a farmer, caring for his horses, the pesticides and sprays used on crops for pest reduction, including the coddling moth, and the cost of equipment. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
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James Franklin discusses his life as a cowboy in Mesa County, Garfield County, and elsewhere on Colorado’s Western Slope. Franklin touches on cooking over the campfire, means of travel, cures for ailments, training horses, the first rodeo in which he participated, a large flood that destroyed his mother’s farm, and dealing with inclement weather on the range. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
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Early Mesa County resident Virgil Hickman discusses farm life in Palisade and East Orchard Mesa, including irrigation ditches and dams, water rights of farmers and ranchers, hunting deer during the Great Depression, the methods used in keeping peach orchards bug-free, weekly band concerts, making apple butter, and the Palisade Peach Festival. He also talks about building Skyway Road on the Grand Mesa with picks, blasting powder and horses. This recording...
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Marie (Becker) Young talks about her experience living in Germany for a year, and the early days of fruit farming in Mesa County, Colorado. Marie also discusses the early history of Orchard Mesa, her social and work life as a teenager, the business of cattle driving and roundups with her husband in Utah, and her life as a homemaker. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the...
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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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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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Former state and federal game warden John Duncan Hart talks about wildlife management in the Grand River Game Bird Refuge and with the Department of Fish and Game, and discusses the populations and habits of certain bird and animal species. He recounts a run-in with John Otto over orders to cull the bison and elk herds Otto had introduced to the Colorado National Monument. He talks about the painter Harold Bryant, his hunting and habits. He also discusses...
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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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Our 970West Studio visited TEDxGrandJunction the weekend of March 8, 2020. Check out our interviews with inspirational speakers and enthusiastic attendees alike! The 2020 Census is now live! Colorado will gain $2,300 in federal funding for each individual who completes the census, so visit 2020census.gov and get to censusing!
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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 Rimrock Road: A Memorial,...