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This interview features Joe Peep, an early Fruita farmer, homesteader, and horse enthusiast. He also worked as a cowboy on Albert Turner’s ranch, and won the horse riding competition at Fruita’s Cowpuncher’s Reunion. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Format:
Voice Recording
Al Look talks about singing in a quartet, publishing books on Mesa County history, and fishing. He also discusses various people and places of the Western Slope. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, A collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Format:
Person
Early Appleton pioneer and founder of COPECO, a large fruit growing operation. The 1910 US Census lists him as the proprietor of a department store and he was the owner, along with William J. Moyer, of the Fair Store. The land on his farm was used as a picnic ground for the store's employees. He built a lavish house for his family on the property. He died in 1917. Census records show that by 1920 his widow, Lois Craven, had moved to Grand Junction....
Format:
Compound
William “Mose” Burkitt and Estella (Gavin) Taylor discuss the early history of Fruita, Colorado and Mesa County. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Format:
Voice Recording
Wyatt Wood describes his time as the manager of the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce and talks about the people he met there, including John Otto, who at one time was allowed to keep a desk in the Chamber office. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Format:
Voice Recording
Ervin Ormsbee talks about the history of cherry growing in the Grand Valley. Dick Williams speaks about the history of fruit growing, canneries, and agribusiness in Mesa County. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Format:
Voice Recording
Walter and Elizabeth Anderson discuss John Otto, the Colorado National Monument, and the history of Mesa County. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
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. Authors of the plays used interviews recorded by the Mesa County Oral History Project as inspiration. This archival recording contains the play The Great Depression.
This...
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. Authors of the plays used interviews recorded by the Mesa County Oral History Project as inspiration. This archival recording contains the play Grand Valley Gardens,...
Format:
Voice Recording
Craig Aupperle talks about the early history of schools and education in Grand Junction and Mesa County. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Public Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
Format:
Voice Recording
John Sylvester Long discusses the religious life and customs in the Church of the Brethren, and the early Twentieth century history of Fruita and Loma, Colorado. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
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,...
Format:
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...
Format:
Voice Recording
Frank Chiaro describes his life as the child of Italian immigrants, farm life in the Pomona area of Mesa County, Colorado, and his various jobs, including his work as a boilermaker for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. He also talks about the second incarnation of his railroading career as a clerk, about mail cars and mail clerks, about the Durham Stockyards and the many livestock trains departing Grand Junction, and about water towers for steam...
Format:
Voice Recording
Edith Sisac talks about growing up in the Pomona area of Mesa County, attending the Pomona School, and riding her bike to Grand Junction High School along the railroad tracks in the early Twentieth century. She recalls the grocery store in Grand Junction owned by Roy Sisac, her husband’s father. She speaks about the Mesa Lakes Resort and the Mesa Lakes Ski Run, which were owned and operated by the Sisac and Foster families, and about the development...
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:
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
In a lecture at Mesa College (now Colorado Mesa University), Zelda Rouillard talks about the life of the outlaw Belle Starr and about her image in folklore, dime novels, and movies. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
*Photograph of Belle Starr
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...
