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Dorothy Tindall talks about the early days of Whitewater, Colorado as a rail center for cattle and stock. She speaks about the administrative organization of schools prior to the consolidation of Mesa County School District 51, her development of Mesa County’s first school hot lunch program at the Star School, games kids played at recess, about her work educating the children of migrant laborers who lived in La Colonia, and her role in the development...
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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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Compound
During a panel discussion of the Mesa County Historical Society, Kenneth Baird discusses the settlement and incorporation of Grand Junction, the creation of the Grand Junction Town Company, early city government, town building, and early municipal ordinances. Professor Don Mackendrick talks about James W. Bucklin’s draft of a new city charter in 1910, which established a commission form of government. He mentions progressive reforms that put the...
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Voice Recording
Janielle Westermire talks about growing up in Grand Junction, Colorado, where her father ministered at the Handy Chapel. She speaks about feeling she lived in a safe, close knit community, but also about racism she experienced as a child. She describes the inspiring life of her father, Harry Butler, who worked in hydrology with the Bureau of Reclamation before becoming the first African-American school board member in Mesa County and the first African-American...
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Compound
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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Organization
The Red Cross Land and Fruit Company managed the Cross Orchards, located at what is now 3073 F Road in the Fruitvale area of Mesa County, Colorado. Cross Orchards was the largest fruit growing operation in the county for many years. It was founded by Isabel Cross and later owned by her younger brother, Walter Bigelow Cross. Isabel (shown living with Walter as children in Vermont in the 1860 U.S. Census), apparently bought the land on which Cross...
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Person
He was the one-time owner, along with his sister, of Cross Orchards in Mesa County, Colorado. Cross Orchards was the largest fruit growing operation in the county for many years. He was born in Vermont. His father was Timothy Cross, who is listed in U.S. Census records from 1850-1870 as a tavern keeper, merchant, and retail grocer with a net worth in real estate equivalent to what would be around $100,000 today. His older sister Isabel Cross (shown...
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Person
She was born in Oklahoma to Robert W. Ramsay from Scotland and Mary E. Ramsay from Illinois. Her father was in the dry goods business. She attended Smith College in New England.
Josephine came to the Grand Junction area in November of 1920. She had been working as the YWCA national secretary (Young Woman’s Christian Association) in Denver and was sent to Grand Junction to found a local YWCA. When interest in founding a local chapter fell through,...
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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 Living History in...
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Voice Recording
Len and Violet Haseman talk about newspaper research they undertook concerning the history of Cross Orchards farm in Mesa County, Colorado. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
*Photograph from the 1932 David Henry Hickman High School yearbook.
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Voice Recording
Kate Elizabeth (Phillips) Wills talks about her childhood living in What Cheer, Iowa, and her family’s move to Colorado in 1909. She talks about her family’s orchard, her education, the activities she took part in as a young person, and how she met her husband. She describes her career as a farm wife and homemaker working on peach orchards and cleaning homes in the Grand Valley, the history of churches in Palisade, and migrant workers that worked...
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Voice Recording
Madge Davis discusses her teenage years in the 1910’s working on the Cross Ranch in Mesa County, thinning peaches and packing peaches with her mom and dad. She describes fruit growing operations on the farm. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of the Mesa County Public Library and the Museum of Western Colorado.
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Person
He was born to Charles and Nettie Zimmerman in McPherson, Kansas in 1903. Charles was a farmer and Nettie a homemaker. The family moved to the Appleton area of Mesa County, Colorado in 1907, when Harold was four years old. The family then moved to Clifton in 1913, near the Cross Ranch, and lived there until 1919. During that time, he attended the Clifton School. He worked on his family’s farm and those of others, picking and packing apples, and...
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Person
He was born in Michigan and received a BS Degree from Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) in 1918. He spent the years of 1913-14 running cattle on the Grand Mesa with Clarence Nichols, then returned to Michigan for school. After graduation, he briefly joined the army during World War One, but contracted Tuberculosis and was released. Due to health reasons, doctors advised him to move to a drier climate.
He took the train...
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Person
Mesa County assessor and banker. He also worked on Cross Orchards fruit farm, where he made wooden apple boxes. Uncle of Velma E. (Borschell) Budin. Brother of Edith Jaynes and son of Ezra Jaynes.
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Voice Recording
Harold Zimmerman describes packing fruit during harvest time in the Clifton area, spraying for codling moths, the end of early apple farming in the valley, the train of wagons used to haul fruit on the Midland Trail at harvest time and about a flash flood that devastated Cross Orchards and destroyed 31 Road. He also talks about his career in bookkeeping for Mesa County Valley School District 51 and other organizations, the run on local banks during...
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Voice Recording
Howard Shults talks about his career as an auctioneer in Mesa County, Colorado. He also discusses the history of people, places and businesses throughout the county, including the Cross Orchard and the Vernon Z. Reed Ranch. Shults’ wife, Helen Shults, gives her occasional insight. 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...
Format:
Voice Recording
Ruth Hoffman talks about her teen and young adult years spent packing fruit for Cross Orchards and other farms in Mesa County, Colorado. She describes the work involved in fruit packing, lighting smudge pots, picking fruit, the change in the kinds of jobs women did on the farm over time, and life on the farm. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of the Mesa County Public Library and the Museum of Western...
