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Showing 1 - 13 of 13 , query time: 0.03s
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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...
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Alexander Guerrie talks about the life of his father Philip Guerrie, an Italian immigrant, pioneer and railroad worker in early Western Colorado. He also discusses his own railroad career and his immigrant family life. 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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Mary Colosimo talks about the life of her Italian immigrant family on a truck farm in the Pomona area of Mesa County, Colorado. She also discusses her marriage to railroad man Charles Colosimo, his career with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, including his stints as a call-boy and an engineer, railroad disciplinary measures, and train accidents. Lorene Roice talks about what brought her to Grand Junction at the end of World War II, her husband’s...
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Frank Mancuso talks about his early life in the Riverside neighborhood of Grand Junction, Colorado after immigrating from Italy, and about Grand Junction’s Italian American community. He also discusses his long-time employment working for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, fires to the ice house, D&RG roundhouse and the freight depot, playing baseball under the Fifth Street viaduct, several local people and buildings, and other aspects of area...
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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...
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Glenn McFall talks about his various jobs around Mesa County and about witnessing the unveiling of Christo’s Valley Curtain installation in Rifle Gap. He also discusses fishing and battling snow storms on the Grand Mesa, the deer population around Mesa County, his experiences during childhood growing up in Clifton, the old Midland Trail automobile route, drinking and making bootleg whiskey, Italian-Americans making bootleg wine, the Book Cliff Railway,...
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Joe, Mike and Ida Peep discuss their family’s Italian heritage, the history of their pioneer family in Fruita, and life as young people in 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.
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Frances Felicia Mendicelli describes her immigration to the United States from Italy, settling in Grand Junction, Colorado, her early education in both Italy and Mesa County, and learning English. She also talks about Christmas, food and tradition in her Italian American family, and about her father’s job as a railroad section foreman and life in a railroad family. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
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Eugene Perry talks about his childhood in Grand Junction’s Riverside neighborhood. He speaks about working for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad from the time he was thirteen years old, his career building track as a section foreman, and the history of D&RG in Grand Junction. He discusses landmarks such as Bowman’s slaughterhouse, the Pest House, and the town’s ice houses. He reminisces about a youth curfew that was in place in Grand Junction...
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Mary Plaisted talks about growing up in the Milldale area around the sugar beet factory in Grand Junction, Colorado, and about the brothels and red-light district nearby. She describes having to beg and take odd cleaning and sewing jobs to support she and her children, and the kind strangers that helped her. She mentions the many places she lived in Grand Junction, the floods common in the Riverside neighborhood, and living in a close-knit Italian...
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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 Immigrants. This...
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Rufus Hirons talks about his education in Grand Junction schools, and about teachers and school district employees (including his father, Walter Hirons). He also touches on the Fruita to Grand Junction Interurban line, sheep ranching with his grandfather, and local Italian Americans. 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
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 Roundhouse Days. This...