DRIVE-THRU / CURBSIDE PICKUP

Passwords are now required to access your account. To create a password, select "Reset my Password" from the Login screen (email address required). For further assistance, please visit the Library Account Passwords FAQ page for instructions or call the library at 970-243-4442.


Showing 1 - 12 of 12 , query time: 0.03s
Cover Image
Format:
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’...
Cover Image
Format:
Voice Recording
Vern Wood discusses his life as an early Mesa County resident, homesteader in Pinon Mesa, and cattle rancher on Glade Park. Wood and his wife Bernice also discuss the building of the Serpent’s Trail on the Colorado National Monument, life at local schools, country dances on Glade Park, transportation methods, and murder scandals that occurred around Glade Park. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
Cover Image
Format:
Voice Recording
James Earl Shaw talks about his father James S. Shaw and his days running the S Cross Ranch on Pinon Mesa, Colorado, mining vanadium on Polar Mesa, Utah, and operating an early automobile dealership on Main Street in Grand Junction, 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.
Cover Image
Format:
Voice Recording
John Collier talks about his upbringing on a farm in Grand Junction, Colorado, on ranchland and farmland in the Redlands, and on a homestead in Pinon Mesa. He speaks about the history of the Sleeper and Ela family’s ranching operations on Pinon Mesa. He describes his Uncle Joe Collier, who served as the Mesa County Sheriff during Prohibition, and a bootlegger’s attempt to blackmail him. He discusses what he perceives as the effect of uranium prospecting...
Cover Image
Format:
Voice Recording
John Hart talks about his friend and brother-in-law, the Mesa County artist Harold Bryant. He discusses Bryant's personality, his horseback riding, hunting and marksmanship, and his method of artistic composition. He also mentions Bucky, a deer that was supposedly neutered and tamed by the Utes, and became a companion of Bryant, among others. Josephine Biggs talks about meeting Bryant at gatherings of the Beaux Arts Club in Grand Junction in the 1920's,...
Cover Image
Format:
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. This archival recording contains the play Harold Bryant: Western...
Cover Image
Format:
Compound
Charles “Frank” Moore discusses his participation in U.S. Government surveys in Western Utah, his interactions with Navajo Indians, and his career in the U.S. Grazing Service. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Cover Image
Format:
Voice Recording
Charles “Frank” Moore discusses his career as a cowboy in Mesa County, Colorado and Eastern Utah. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Cover Image
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....
Cover Image
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...
Cover Image
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.
Cover Image
Format:
Compound
Glenn McFall talks about his various jobs around Mesa County and about witnessing the unveiling of Christo’s Valley Curtain installation in Rifle Gap. He also discusses fishing and battling snow storms on the Grand Mesa, the deer population around Mesa County, his experiences during childhood growing up in Clifton, the old Midland Trail automobile route, drinking and making bootleg whiskey, Italian-Americans making bootleg wine, the Book Cliff Railway,...