Mesa County Oral History Project
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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...
Format:
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:
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
During a Mesa County Public Library program, Michael Husband speaks about the many cultural activities in early Grand Junction and Mesa County, Colorado, including music, dance, and theater. He names top performers who came to Grand Junction, including the Russian Ballet, John Philip Sousa, the New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony. He discusses the role of Walter Walker in supporting and promoting the arts. He lists the many venues that...
Format:
Voice Recording
Sisters Dorothy (Raber) Beard and Marjorie (Raber) Likes talk about the history of their family in Fruita, Colorado. They speak about Will Minor, the goat herder and self-educated photographer, author, and amateur lepidopterist who discovered the butterfly Papilio Indra Minori on the Colorado National Monument. They discuss homesteads that the Beard family owned in the canyons that comprise the current day McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area....
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Voice Recording
In an interview recorded November 8, 1977, Fred Ames and his wife Emma Lillian (Stocks) Ames discuss the history of Sinbad Valley and its settlement by his family and others.
In second and third interviews recorded on November 15 and December 3, 1977 (transcript only*), Fred Ames talks about the McCarty Gang, their stomping grounds in Sinbad Valley and nearby Eastern Utah, and about meeting Tom McCarty as a child. He discusses homesteading and...
Format:
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
Louis Pavetti and Virgil Van Dyke talk about the origins of the Mesa County Sheriff Posse, its mission, and about search and rescue missions in which they assisted local authorities. They also talk about the Posse’s rodeo riding and roping programs for youth, “cowboy polo”, the Colorado Stampede (a professional rodeo put on by the Posse), and about trail riding and wild horses. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project,...
Format:
Voice Recording
Dudley Mitchell talks about the election campaigns of U.S. Representative Wayne Aspinall, and the campaign caravans they held in Western Colorado. Mitchell also discusses his work as the “ribbon candy expert” at the Miller Candy Factory in Grand Junction, the history of the Grand Valley’s Interurban line and the Grand Junction streetcar line, working at the Lyceum Theater on Main Street as a young man, and teenage escapades, such as causing...
Format:
Voice Recording
Ruth Tilton talks about her involvement in Tri-M, the Girl Scouts, a bridge club, and other clubs and societies upon moving to Palisade, Colorado. She speaks about skiing on the Grand Mesa with her husband Forrest Tilton in the 1930’s, and about skiing near Leadville. She discusses the history of the Palisade Public Library from its humble beginnings inside of a downtown store, and her involvement in recording and preserving Palisade’s local history....
Format:
Compound
Elberta Francis and David Sundal hold a conversation about former Grand Junction resident and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Francis speaks about knowing Trumbo through family connections and as a child of similar age. During his conversation with Francis and in a separate interview with Evelyn Kyle, Sundal talks about interviewing Trumbo and his impressions of him. Together, Francis and Sundal paint a picture of Trumbo and his...
Format:
Voice Recording
Andrew E. Riddle, an early Mesa County resident, discusses evidence of early Native American presence around the Paradox Valley area, including artifacts such as arrowheads, skeletons, and metates. Riddle also speaks about the early days of uranium mining, the impact of wild burros on public lands, and local people. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western...
Format:
Voice Recording
Lawrence Ryan talks about the history of livery service in Plateau Valley, with an emphasis on the dairy and mail delivery services conducted by his father using horse-drawn carriages. The interview was conducted by the Collbran Historical Society in conjunction with the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Format:
Voice Recording
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...
Format:
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
Lucy Ela discusses John Otto, the Colorado National Monument, and the settlement of Glade Park. 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 1936 Grand Junction High School yearbook.
Format:
Voice Recording
In a lecture sponsored by Mesa County Libraries, Professor Don MacKendrick talks about the cultural history of the Grand Valley, framing that history in the context of the broader American settlement of the West. He reports on the rowdiness on Colorado Avenue that accompanied Grand Junction’s founding, followed by the quick establishment of social norms and cultural organizations. He describes Grand Junction’s early theaters and performance spaces,...
Format:
Voice Recording
Longtime Fruita residents and photographers Will Minor and Lee Warner discuss their experiences in the Colorado National Monument and the surrounding areas of Western Colorado and Eastern Utah. They also talk about meeting John Otto, and about Minor’s discovery of the rare Papilio Indra Minori butterfly on the Monument. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of...
Format:
Voice Recording
Helen Johnson talks about the Hotchkiss family and their history in and around the town of Hotchkiss, Colorado. She compares the towns of Hotchkiss and Paonia in their early days. She speaks about moving to Grand Junction with her husband in 1923, living downtown, and her impressions of the town. A Rebekah and the wife of an Odd Fellow, she talks about the history of both organizations, recalls details of Rebekah and Odd Fellows membership, and remembers...
Format:
Compound
Jack Smillie talks about writing the book Cowboys are People at the urging of his first wife, who wanted him to write his life story. He remembers his time in the US Army during World War I, when he was stationed stateside and achieved the rank of lieutenant. He recalls working on a ranch in Granby, where he met the artist Harold Bryant. He speaks about encountering extreme weather, how it affected travel, and working to clear snow. He talks about...
