Mesa County (Colo.) -- History
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Evie Smith describes growing up on a pineapple plantation on the Island of Oahu in Hawaii that was run by her father. She talks about the different ethnic groups inhabiting camps on the plantation, including Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese workers. She speaks about the US military’s war games that preceded the attack on Pearl Harbor in the week prior to December 7, 1941. She describes the bombing of Hawaii by Japanese forces and the deaths of civilians...
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Voice Recording
Glenn McFall talks about early doctors in Grand Junction, Colorado and their treatment of patients, including the story of Dr. Everett Munro removing McFall's son's tonsils on the dining room table, and Munro performing an emergency appendectomy at a home in Unaweep Canyon. He also discusses the Strawberry Days Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction bicycle race, old Western Slope hotels, the rigors of early interstate automobile travel, competing in...
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Compound
Gilbert Baylis explains his relationship with former United States Senate appointee Walter Walker’s son, Preston, who was a close friend of his growing up. Baylis describes Preston Walker as a very popular fellow and a friendly rival to him. Baylis also discusses his own education in politics, and Walter and Preston’s family life and social activities. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County Oral History Project,...
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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...
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Voice Recording
Morgan Goss discusses his time as a cowboy in Mesa County during the early 1900’s. 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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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...
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Voice Recording
Harry Godby describes working as a crane and heavy equipment operator for Corn Construction and others at sites throughout Western Colorado and Eastern Utah, including the Uranium mill in Grand Junction, Colorado and oil shale mines along Parachute Creek. He also talks more specifically about working as a pile driver and pile driving technique. He discusses working in a woolen mill for ten hours a day after running away from home at fourteen, his...
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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 First School, about...
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Voice Recording
Madge Davis discusses her teenage years in the 1910’s working on the Cross Ranch in Mesa County, thinning peaches and packing peaches with her mom and dad. She describes fruit growing operations 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 Colorado.
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Voice Recording
Nancy (Renwick) Saxton and her daughter, Nancy Margaret "Peggy" Saxton, discuss Nancy's career as a female letter carrier in the Grand Valley, and the farming history of their family in both Appleton and the Hunter District. 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
Mrs. Rose Perry relates her son’s experience on the U.S.S. Helena, a Brooklyn-class light cruiser used by the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater of World War II. The Helena was one of the cruisers attacked in Pearl Harbor, and was directly torpedoed by the Japanese. The Helena survived the attack and was assigned to assist in the Guadalcanal campaign. It helped to destroy several Japanese aircraft and battleships and contributed to American victories...
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Voice Recording
Clem Goettelman explains his time as an employee for The Daily Sentinel under Preston Walker as the publisher. He discusses his position as a union leader before the Typographical Union Strike, conflicts within the work environment, Walter Walker’s involvement with and subsequent opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, and The Daily Sentinel being one of the only papers in the country to quickly cover President Theodore Roosevelt’s death with a full...
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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...
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Voice Recording
Jean Page talks about the engineering career of her father, John Page, including his role as the office engineer on the Hoover Dam project, his design of several other dams in the West, and his appointment as the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation in 1937. She also discusses his life as an engineer and fruit farmer in Mesa County, his civic involvement in the area, and her childhood there. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral...
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Voice Recording
Josephine Biggs discusses her memories of Cross Orchards and owner “Colonel” Bill Cross, horseback riding excursions, and the LaCourt Hotel. She also talks about her work with the YWCA during a time when many young girls were “getting out of hand with all the boys coming home” from World War I, Lincoln Park and Lincoln Park School, her husband’s development of the Lincoln Park Neighborhood, and some details of the home they lived in there....
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Voice Recording
Glenn McFall shares a range of anecdotes and stories about life on Colorado's Western Slope, from "lobo wolves" and fish fries, to cowboys and bootleggers, to morticians and doctors during the depression. 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.
