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In a lecture and panel discussion at the Palisade’s Taylor Elementary School, Evelyn Kyle speaks about the history of the Mesa County Oral History Project and its invaluable role in collecting local stories. An interview panel of Evelyn Kyle, Paula Buttolph, Mary Faye Hampton, and Luella Morgan speak about their lives, the lives of women in the area, and Western Slope history. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County...
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Ruth Tilton talks about her involvement in Tri-M, the Girl Scouts, a bridge club, and other clubs and societies upon moving to Palisade, Colorado. She speaks about skiing on the Grand Mesa with her husband Forrest Tilton in the 1930’s, and about skiing near Leadville. She discusses the history of the Palisade Public Library from its humble beginnings inside of a downtown store, and her involvement in recording and preserving Palisade’s local history....
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Alice Clinton recalls her life on a fruit farm and in her husband’s insurance business in Palisade, Colorado during the early Twentieth century. 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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Ruby Gaither, co-author of the book, Our Palisade Heritage, talks about her life in Palisade, Colorado after relocating there with her husband and children in 1943. She speaks about teaching school at Palisade and Central High Schools. She discusses her family and her life as the wife of a minister at the Palisade United Methodist Church. She describes certain people from Palisade, including J.R. Smith, an orchardist, A.E. Taylor, and Helen Maurer....
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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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Essie Aspinall talks about her arrival in Palisade in 1910, her childhood there, and life in town. She speaks about growing up on a fruit farm and attending school at Mt. Lincoln, where she met her future husbands Frank Best and Wayne Aspinall. She describes teaching in a one-room school house in Sedgewick, Colorado. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western...
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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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Wayne Aspinall discusses a political career that spanned his election to the Mt. Lincoln School Board near Palisade, Colorado to his last election for the US House of Representatives in 1972. He speaks about campaigning in what was then the Fourth Congressional District in Western Colorado. He talks about his eight-year career as a teacher and school bus driver at the Mt. Lincoln School, taking students camping, dealing with ticks, and coaching girls...
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In an interview from May 14, 1981 (audio only, no transcript), Basil T. Knight talks about his youth in Michigan, meeting his wife’s family in Palisade, Colorado and ultimately moving there, operating a fruit farm, and becoming a lifelong teacher and school administrator. He explains the mechanisms that originally funded the many smaller school districts on the Western Slope, including taxes on railroads, and the reasons for the consolidation that...
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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 Wayne Aspinall: Scholar,...
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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 Women in Mesa County:...
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Gertrude Rader discusses her time spent teaching in Loma, Colorado in the early 1900s. She talks about the role of the sugar beet company as landowner and employer in the area. She includes details about the schools, businesses, and churches that existed in Loma, her involvement starting Mesa County’s first hot school lunch program, and her experiences attending an annual fish fry in Horsethief Canyon. Gertrude also shares memories about the many...
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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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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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Early day teachers and employees of Mesa County, including Winifred Bull and Basil T. Knight, talk about the history of education in the area during a panel discussion sponsored by the Mesa County Historical Society. 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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Helen and Marion Bowman describe the early days of Mesa County: including school life and the rivalry between Grand Junction and Fruita High Schools, the social scene, and the D&RG Railroad. 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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Ina Dyer discusses life as a schoolteacher in Mesa, Collbran, Fruitvale, and Grand Junction, Colorado, including methods of punishing students, teacher’s pay, and her relationships with fellow teachers in the area. 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 from 1943 Grand Junction High School...
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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...