Fruit growers
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In a lecture for the Mesa County Historical Society, Harry Talbott talks about the history of his family in Palisade, Colorado. He also speaks about the history of fruit growing in Palisade and Mesa County, from its inception in the late 1800’s until 1982, when his talk took place. He details the history of fruit growing cooperatives in the Grand Valley and methods of marketing and shipping produce. He discusses the Peach mosaic disease, other challenges...
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Voice Recording
Ruth Echternach talks about her arrival in Palisade, Colorado in 1917 and her graduation from the Palisade School. She discusses the history of early Palisade and its people. She speaks about her marriage to local farmer Marion Echternach, life on a fruit farm, and raising children. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
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Voice Recording
Helen and Marion Bowman discuss Marion Bowman’s father, George Bowman, founder of the Palisades National Bank, United Fruit Growers Association, and the inventor of the Fruit Gathering Bag (Bowman picking sack). They also discuss the history of fruit growing in Palisade, 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...
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Voice Recording
Edithe Pryor discusses her upbringing on a farm in Palisade, Colorado in the early Twentieth century as the daughter of a Welsh immigrant father, and the agricultural history of Palisade, Clifton and the east end of the Grand Valley. She also talks about irrigating land, her mother’s homemaking and recipes for apple deserts, using an old wood-fired cook stove, and getting drinking water from an irrigation ditch. The interview was conducted by the...
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Voice Recording
Virgil Hickman and his wife discuss their lives growing up around Mesa County. Virgil’s grandfather began as a miner in Palisade and Cameo, Colorado, and his family turned to fruit farming. Hickman describes planting the first fruit orchard on East Orchard Mesa, the labor involved with peach growing, and the development of the area. He touches on the businesses, social scene, and Christmas celebrations in Palisade during the early 1900s. The interview...
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Voice Recording
Fred Powell talks about his life as a fruit farmer in Delta County, Colorado, and about overseeing fruit production as the manager of the Paonia Fruit Growers Association and the United Fruit Growers Association. 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.
*Photograph courtesy of the Palisade Historical Society....
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Voice Recording
Lee Toothaker discusses growing alfalfa and peaches and cattle ranching in Palisade, Colorado. He also talks about raising mules on farms in Iowa and Missouri as a child, and about his education and career as a teacher. 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.
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Voice Recording
Ann Stokes talks about her parents' arrival in the United States and her childhood in Palisade, Colorado. She recalls her education in the Palisade School. She describes smudging to help prevent frost damage in her family’s peach orchards on East Orchard Mesa. She speaks about working in the Stokes Coal Mine with her husband, about his bouts with pneumonia, and the effects from an accident when he was hit by a bus. The interview was conducted by...
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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...
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Voice Recording
Kate Elizabeth (Phillips) Wills talks about her childhood living in What Cheer, Iowa, and her family’s move to Colorado in 1909. She talks about her family’s orchard, her education, the activities she took part in as a young person, and how she met her husband. She describes her career as a farm wife and homemaker working on peach orchards and cleaning homes in the Grand Valley, the history of churches in Palisade, and migrant workers that worked...
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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 Fruit, Bugs and Mother...
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Voice Recording
Richard Williams talks about his family’s arrival in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1908. He speaks about his father’s purchase of the Independent Abstract Company and about his own involvement with several abstract and title companies in town. He discusses the formation of the Grand Junction Lions Club, the Grand Junction Lions Club Carnival, and the club’s fundraising for Grand Junction Junior College and other local causes. He speaks about his...
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Voice Recording
Bill Rump talks about his father Charlie Rump and his roll in developing the Redlands in Mesa County, Colorado as a member of the Redlands Company and the Redlands Water and Power Company. He recounts the efforts of those companies in creating orchards and other agricultural enterprises on the Redlands. He speaks about the Redlands School, roads, sports, youth activities, and other aspects of life on the Redlands and in Grand Junction. He remembers...
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Voice Recording
Ruth Hoffman talks about her teen and young adult years spent packing fruit for Cross Orchards and other farms in Mesa County, Colorado. She describes the work involved in fruit packing, lighting smudge pots, picking fruit, the change in the kinds of jobs women did on the farm over time, and life on the farm. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of the Mesa County Public Library and the Museum of Western...
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Voice Recording
Early Mesa County resident Fred Hulburt discusses his job as a postman, the difficulties of starting a fruit farming business, his views on the treatment of the Utes in the area, building tunnels for the Highline Canal above Cameo, methods used to prevent the codling moth from ruining fruit orchards, and how to properly break wild horses and mules. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
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Voice Recording
Tom Charles talks about moving to the Fruitvale area of Mesa County, Colorado in 1907, his family’s fruit orchards, and the history of fruit growing in the Grand Valley. Emma (Berg) Nagel describes her family’s homestead in the Highpoint area north of Fruita in 1894. She speaks about living in a dugout for three years, clearing the land for cultivation, and the family’s fruit orchard. Charles and Nagel both discuss the various crops grown around...
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Voice Recording
Anna Foster describes the history of her family, her life as a school teacher, and the history of the town of Mesa, 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.
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Voice Recording
Joseph John Egger discusses his family’s history in Mesa County, and Mesa County agriculture in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
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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.
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Voice Recording
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,...
