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View of Rock Creek Canyon showing the Moffatt railroad grade at upper right.
"This two and one half miles of railroad track with tunnels No. 45, 46, 47, 48 and the big bridge across the creek was considered the costliest piece of grade on the railroad. A high bridge across the canyon in the foreground could have eliminated all this costly construction and maintenance and such a bridge was contemplated, but steel for the structure was unobtainable...
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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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Voice Recording
Glenn Berry talks about joining the US Navy at the age of fourteen and describes his experiences aboard the USS Huntington, an armored cruiser. He also discusses working in a vanadium mine at the age of 12, becoming a machine shop apprentice for the Union Pacific railroad at fourteen, and going to night school to get an engineering degree after his discharge from the Navy. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
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Voice Recording
Ray Bernal talks about his early life in the Grand Valley and the wide variety of jobs that he held, including work as a "gandy dancer" on the railroad, mining, farming, thinning beets, janitorial work, and herding sheep. He also discusses a group breakfast he had with President Harry S. Truman, where Truman's daughter staged a musical performance. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
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Voice Recording
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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He was born to Roland "Tank" Burford and Caroline (Newton) Burford in Fresno, California. His father was an attorney and his mother was a homemaker. He became a Mesa County, Colorado pioneer. In the early 1880's, he arrived in Fruita, Colorado on the narrow gauge railroad. He took a job with the Thompson brothers, who had a cattle ranching outfit on Pinon Mesa. According to Lawrence Aubert, a longtime sheep rancher, the Burford family was also involved...
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Julia Harris discusses her family’s pioneer history and its move westward, including the journey of her grandfather, who was a member of the 1st Colorado Cavalry Regiment before homesteading in Western Colorado. She talks about early life in De Beque, Colorado, including social life and various places they lived, the railroad, sheep trails, De Beque businesses and landmarks, and her work in the local Republican Party. The interview was conducted...
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Voice Recording
Alex Bauer talks extensively about this history of his family, part of the German community of Morganthau in Russia. He recounts their immigration to the United States in the years before the Russian Revolution. He remembers his dad’s career as a machinist for Missouri Pacific Railroad and then the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He also recounts his own career as a machinist. He speaks about his parrallel career as the shop steward International...
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She was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota to Bruce Edward Jackson and Inez Alma Peterson. Her father was a railroader and her mother was a school teacher. She grew up on a homestead in Cheyenne County, Colorado where her family farmed. In 1920, her family moved to Grand Valley, Colorado (now Parachute). She was thirteen years old. She began teaching around 1927, when she was twenty-one. She taught in rural schools in Garfield County before moving to...
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He was born to Thomas S. McCoy and Harriet E. (Brewin) McCoy in Brooklyn, Iowa, and moved with his parents and siblings to Mesa County, Colorado in 1911, when he was about 18 years old. They lived one mile east of Fruita, and he recalled the small ranches and close proximity to neighbors, very different from the large sprawling farms of Iowa. He worked as a locomotive engineer and machinist for the Uintah Railroad and the Rio Grande Southern Railroad...
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He was born in Fort Scott, Kansas and came to Salida, Colorado. He was in Mesa County, Colorado by 1907, when he married Luella (Peart) Peacock in Grand Junction. The 1910 U.S. Census shows him working as a freight conductor, and his daughter Gwendolyn (Peacock) McKee confirmed that he worked for the railroad.
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An Italian immigrant and farmer who settled in the Loma and Fruita areas in the early Twentieth century. He came in 1885 as a railroad worker for D&RG, replacing the narrow gauge line with a broader one. He then purchased land, built homes, and returned to Italy to meet and marry Angelina Pepe, a woman from the village of Vailo, in an arranged marriage. He returned with her to Mesa County in 1904.
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He was born in Italy and came to the United States in order to marry Susie Mendicelli in an arranged marriage. They lived in Pueblo where her family was, and then settled in Grand Junction, Colorado. He had been an officer in the Italian Army, where he was paid 3 cents a day. He worked for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad as a stationary engineer, for the Public Service Company, the Uintah Railway, the Juanita Flour Mill, and the Mendicelli Bakery....
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"A view of the Mesa looking southwest, about 1930 [photo date is 1932; Album 1 index is 1924]. Shown are parts of seven ranches, with the Kayser and Schrupp ranches in the distance. The nearest place is Theisens, Schomers is just above the railroad S, the Bill Johannbroer ranch in the center and the former John Ambos ranch to the right." McCoy Memoirs p. 216
"Conger Mesa was to stand deserted until about 1903, then a group of people mostly of...
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He was born in Ophir, Colorado to father James Gilligan Brewster and his mother David Ann (Kelley) Brewster. The 1900 US Census shows him living with his parents in San Juan County, Utah, when he was five. The family was living in Fruita, Colorado by 1910, when he was 15 years old. His father was a farmer and Joel was an only child. He married Jenny Ellen Menter on June 11, 1927, while he was working as a bridge inspector for the Santa Fe Railroad...
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She was born in Grand Junction, Colorado to William D. Jones and Mattie (Moore) Jones. Her father was a locomotive engineer. Her mother was a homemaker. Her parents were both Mesa County pioneers. She attended the Franklin School as a child. She also worked in her grandmother’s boarding house, which boarded sugar factory workers. She married Walter M. Edwards on October 22, 1911. Mesa County divorce records show that they divorced on October 16,...
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Gertrude Rader talks at length about the Tabequache band of the Ute and her frequent contact with them when they camped in Kannah Creek during their annual return migration from the mountains of Colorado to the Uintah Reservation in Utah in the early Twentieth century. She discusses her memories of Chipeta and describes Ute customs she observed. She talks about her pioneering grandfather, and about a serious sheep and cattleman conflict that occurred...
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Voice Recording
Gladys Gross, who grew up on an apple farm at the intersection of North Avenue and 12th Street, talks about her father’s residential development of their farm land. She discusses old businesses in town, including the icehouses utilized by the railroad near Third Street and how they burned down. She also talks about the desperation and hunger of people during the Great Depression, her work with New Deal programs, the route of the Little Book Cliff...
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He was born in Missouri. US Census records show him living with his uncle James Taylor and aunt Taylor in 1880, at the age of eight.
According to Patricia LeMaster, he attended the University of Pennsylvania and Washington University in St. Louis and obtained his medical degree. The 1900 census record shows him living in Grand Junction, Colorado. He became an early Mesa County, Colorado doctor and a physician for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad....
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Compound
Laura Foster talks about moving from Pennsylvania to Telluride, Colorado in 1890, with a description of their journey on foot with two burros over Ophir Pass, and about pioneer life near Telluride, including the time she helped her mother birth a baby in absence of any help (some or all of which may be a tall tale). She also gives an embellished story about her time as a mining camp and railroad cook, and gives what seems to be an inaccurate account...
