Frontier and pioneer life -- Colorado
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Emma Conner talks about the lives of her parents and grandparents, Mesa County pioneers. She speaks about her early schooling at the Franklin School and work in her grandmother’s boardinghouse. She details restrictions that were put into place during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. She discusses the railroad occupations of her father and husbands, and a rail accident that killed her second husband. She talks about downtown Grand Junction’s dirt...
Format:
Voice Recording
Eda Musser talks about settling in Delta, Colorado in the early 1900’s, about her father’s race horses, and horse races in which he competed in Grand Junction’s Lincoln Park and elsewhere. She discusses her courtship with husband Kel Musser, and his family’s pioneering history in Escalante Canyon. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western Colorado and...
Format:
Compound
Mary Plaisted talks about early days in Mesa County, Colorado, her marriage to Thomas Pierce, a farmer in Loma, and the busy life of a homemaker on the farm. She discusses various locations and institutions around the Western Slope, including the Paradox Valley, the Cowpuncher’s Reunion, and the Little Book Cliff Railway. She speaks about her warm family life as a child in Kansas, and life in Western Colorado after her father’s death. She also...
Format:
Compound
Anna E. Craig discusses her upbringing in Mesa, Colorado, including her social experiences, her father’s life as one of the few doctors in the area, the Mesa County Fair, her holiday rituals, methods of preserving food, and what it was like to own a hotel in Mesa. She also talks about an instance in the 1890’s when hundreds of sheep were driven over a cliff by cattle ranchers on the Grand Mesa, and other strife between cattle and sheep ranchers....
Format:
Voice Recording
Ica Click talks about life on a homestead in the Kannah Creek area of Mesa County, Colorado in the early Twentieth century. She discusses going to the Purdy Mesa School, social activities, the people of Kannah Creek and Whitewater, homemaking, caring for animals, and home remedies. 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....
Format:
Voice Recording
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.
Format:
Compound
In this recording, Alta Nolan reads the memoirs of Cordelia Files. Files talks about the history of her parents and maternal grandparents who homesteaded in the Fruita, Colorado area in the 1890’s. She describes the fruit growing operation on the homestead. She recounts seeing the Ute people and Chipeta when they came in the fall to dry fruit from the orchard. She remembers early Fruita, with its dirt streets and plank sidewalks. She speaks about...
Format:
Voice Recording
William Ela talks about his family’s arrival in the Little Dolores River area of Mesa County in 1881 and their establishment of the 2-V Ranch. He tells stories about his grandfather, the pioneer rancher and Grand Junction town mayor William Phillips Ela. He remembers his grandfather’s horse Looney and his escapades. He speaks about the dangers of travel to and from Glade Park in the early days. He recalls stories passed down about his ancestors’...
Format:
Compound
During a panel discussion of the Mesa County Historical Society, Kenneth Baird discusses the settlement and incorporation of Grand Junction, the creation of the Grand Junction Town Company, early city government, town building, and early municipal ordinances. Professor Don Mackendrick talks about James W. Bucklin’s draft of a new city charter in 1910, which established a commission form of government. He mentions progressive reforms that put the...
Format:
Compound
Early Fruitvale resident Velma E. Budin discusses the history of Fruitvale and Fruitvale High School, the extensive pioneering history of the Borschell family in the Grand Valley, the biographies of several prominent Fruitvale families, fruit farming, and early irrigation methods of the Grand Valley. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado.
*Photograph...
