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Philip Griebel talks about his life as an educator and a coach at Fruita High School. He remembers the fire that burnt down the first Fruita Union High School in 1934. He describes teaching topics in science and math for 28 years. He speaks about his career as a basketball, football, and track coach, remembers school and community involvement in the games, and rivalries between Fruita and high schools in Delta, Grand Junction, Gunnison, Montrose,...
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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 Wayne Aspinall: Scholar,...
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Eva Wood Leslie discusses her family’s farm life on Pinon Mesa, Colorado, sheep farming, chores done around the home, and school teaching in Mesa County. 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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Wayne Aspinall discusses a political career that spanned his election to the Mt. Lincoln School Board near Palisade, Colorado to his last election for the US House of Representatives in 1972. He speaks about campaigning in what was then the Fourth Congressional District in Western Colorado. He talks about his eight-year career as a teacher and school bus driver at the Mt. Lincoln School, taking students camping, dealing with ticks, and coaching girls...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Elizabeth Angus talks about teaching in Atchee, Colorado, now a ghost town, in the early 1920’s. She remembers the life and history of the company towns that served the Uintah Railway, a gilsonite mining enterprise. She speaks about the Ute people who would visit the general store in Mack, Colorado. She describes certain employees of the Uintah. She talks about Baxter Pass and the environment of the Bookcliffs. The interview was conducted by the...
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In a panel discussion at the Museum of Western Colorado, Esther (Anderson) Campbell talks about her experience as a teacher in country and town schools in Moffat County. Randall Deewer, former principal of the Hawthorne School in Grand Junction, Emma Louise McCreanor and others also describe their experiences in country schools. This recording was provided by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums...
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Leola Wiswell talks about moving with her husband to Loma, Colorado in 1941, about joining the Jolly 16 Club, and about the people and community of Loma. She reminisces about life in the United Presbyterian Church in Loma. She recalls serving as the PTA board president, the origin of Mesa County School District 51’s hot lunch program at the Loma School, and her career in food services. She remembers the Loma Community Hall and programs held there....
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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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Anna Foster describes the history of her family, her life as a school teacher, and the history of 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.
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James Brouse discusses moving and going to school in Glade Park, Colorado as a young boy in 1915. He tells tales of cowpunching in the canyons near Westwater, homesteading, the difficulties of dry farming, and the methods and difficulties of transportation into town from up on Glade Park. He also talks about local murders, sheep and cattlemen wars, and the history of different schools in the area. His wife Ellen (Morse) Brouse, longtime Mesa County...
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Cleaola Ernst talks about moving to Colorado from Kansas on a narrow-gauge train in 1897, when she was five years old. She speaks about her nursing education and working as a nurse. She remembers her family’s life in Hotchkiss, Colorado, and the general store that her parents ran. She tells the story of an eagle that purportedly picked up a small girl near Norwood, and how her family came to be in possession of the eagle after it was shot. She remembers...
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Gertrude Rader discusses her time spent teaching in Loma, Colorado in the early 1900s. She talks about the role of the sugar beet company as landowner and employer in the area. She includes details about the schools, businesses, and churches that existed in Loma, her involvement starting Mesa County’s first hot school lunch program, and her experiences attending an annual fish fry in Horsethief Canyon. Gertrude also shares memories about the many...
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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...