Mesa County Oral History Project
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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’...
Format:
Compound
Artist Cecilia Cardman talks about her struggles with the English language and her experience in public schools as a young immigrant from Italy, and about her higher education in both Italy and in Boulder at the University of Colorado. She speaks about teaching art at early Mesa College and what the college was like at that time. She describes the “topnotch” teachers she had at Grand Junction High School. She discusses leaving her teaching career...
Format:
Voice Recording
Carl Gesberg discusses life growing up on Orchard Mesa and the history of that area. He talks about dating, camping and other youthful activities, holidays, curing meats, and the region’s development. 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.
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
Helen Johnson talks about gardening, methods of preserving food, and other aspects of rural life in Hotchkiss, Colorado in the early Twentieth century. She talks about her mother, Emily (Scatliff) Young, and the jobs she took to support the family after the loss of their life savings due to her father’s bad investment. She discusses the family’s religious observances and the history of churches in Hotchkiss. She talks about her abusive father-in-law...
Format:
Compound
Charles "Frank" Moore discusses tensions between cattle and sheep ranchers before and after the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act, land management, and his career in the U.S. Grazing Service as the Regional Grazier for the area covering Eastern Utah and Western 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
Roy Schumann speaks about the history of his German ancestors in Russia, about the immigration of his parents from Russia to Colorado, and their marriage and move to the Western Slope. He describes the life of German people living in Russia in the early Twentieth century. He talks about the food and traditions of his family and other German Americans. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County...
Format:
Voice Recording
Al Look discusses his 40-year employment with the Daily Sentinel, including his relationships with publishers Walter Walker and Preston Walker and the lives of the two men. He also discusses the Typographical Union Strike of 1946 and the hardships it caused between the union and the Sentinel. Al also talks about his and Walter Walker’s relationship with the Ku Klux Klan, Walker’s tolerance of the brothels on South Avenue, and Walker’s rivalry...
Format:
Compound
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,...
Format:
Voice Recording
Frank Simonetti Sr. talks about his arrival in the United States from southern Italy in 1914 and his eventual arrival in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1918, where he began a long career with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He remembers a fire that burnt down the D&RG icehouse, the railroad shop strike in 1922, and working a seven-day work week for thirty years. He recalls different kinds of locomotives. Angela Simonetti recalls growing up in the...
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:
Compound
Glenn McFall discusses downtown businesses and business owners in Grand Junction, Colorado, as well as the shoe store he worked at for nine years, McConnell-Lowes. Glenn also talks about the involvement of the Ku Klux Klan in the Grand Valley area, the Mesa County Pest House and Smallpox outbreaks, the social scene and where people went to go dancing, the Mesa County Fair, horse racing and gambling, bailing rowdy cowboys out of the local jail, Eddie...
Format:
Compound
Mary Cox talks about her education at the Bryant School and elsewhere in Grand Junction, about corsets and other aspects of school fashion, the history of the Riverside Neighborhood, attending community dances and Glenwood Springs’ Strawberry Days, and boys swimming in the Colorado River. She also discusses old downtown businesses, going to movies at the Majestic Theater, a brothel that advertised at the Mesa County Fairgrounds during a baseball...
