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Professor Don Mackendrick talks about the history of irrigation and the development of water resources in Mesa County, Colorado from the 1880's until the construction of the Highline Canal in 1915 (during a program of the Mesa County Historical Society in July 1980). 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.
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Daily Sentinel writer William “Bill” Nelson talks about the history of the Grand Valley irrigation system during the early days of Mesa County. Nelson describes how water projects were developed, how water is doled out to people in the area, and specific water rights. He also discusses his family life, community activism, his father’s failing businesses during the Great Depression, and experiencing surgery on his retina. The interview was conducted...
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Dick Williams talks about the games he played with children as a boy in the downtown area of Grand Junction, including hide and go seek and kick the can. He remembers playing sandlot baseball and other games in a vacant lot on 9th Street between Grand and White Avenues. He recalls swimming in ditches and canals, and ice skating in what is now Lincoln Park. He speaks about competing in athletics in high school and college, and in Pioneer Clubs, which...
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John Brach, the son of Italian immigrants, talks about his family moving from Aguilar, Colorado to Loma so that they could work in agriculture instead of the coal mines. He speaks about relying on ditch water for drinking water, using carbide lights, and a coal stove. He remembers people who came to Loma as part of a Federal resettlement program during the Dust Bowl, including the De Kruger, Bittle and Beede families. He recalls other residents and...
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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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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 A Natural Resource:...
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Leon Reed talks about the Grand Mesa, its reservoirs, the history of water development on the Mesa and in Delta County, Colorado, and his father's role in that development. 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.
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Bunk Weimer recalls settling on land at the current location of Colorado Mesa University as a child in 1903, where the boys slept in a cave and the rest of the family in tents before the land was leveled for farming. He talks about helping with the construction of the first Mesa County Fairgrounds (on the site of the present day Lincoln Park), including the Lincoln Park Barn. He discusses helping his father pour foundations for several prominent buildings...
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William Raber talks about his family’s ranch in the Kannah Creek area of Mesa County, Colorado, and about the development of reservoirs and water projects, beginning with the city of Grand Junction’s diversion of water from Kannah Creek around 1910. He also talks about traveling by train with cattle that he intended to sell in Los Angeles, and about discrimination that he experienced during World War I as the son of German immigrant. The interview...
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James Earl Shaw and Creston Ralph Bailey talk about the history of their families in Mesa County, and discuss their families’ roles in the automobile and grocery businesses respectively. They mention people and places important to Grand Junction. They also reminisce about their experiences at the Presbyterian church camp on the Grand Mesa, and all the antics they pulled while growing up. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History...
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In one interview captured in five recordings, Kenneth Thompson talks about his life in Mesa County, Colorado. In part one, he remembers moving to Clifton, Colorado, where the family farmed fruit. He recalls homesteading on Glade Park in a log cabin built by his fifteen-year-old brother. He discusses his time as a sheepherder and sheepherding practices, especially those for protecting sheep from various predators. He speaks about trapping predators...
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In a lecture to the Grand Junction Lions Club, given just days before he died, prominent water law attorney Silmon Smith talks about his life and the history of Grand Junction (the lecture was broadcast hours later on KREX radio). He remembers his family’s arrival in the town in the 1890’s and early development in Grand Junction. He recalls a colorful Main Street filled with saloons. He speaks about his father Frank Smith’s respiratory illness,...