Grand Junction (Colo.) -- History
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Ann Stokes talks about homesteading on East Orchard Mesa after her family moved to Mesa County, Colorado in 1904. She remembers her father working on the “fancy” masonry for the Grand Junction train station. She recalls living in a one-room log cabin and sharing that cabin with a horse for an evening. She speaks about the development of irrigation on East Orchard Mesa and her father’s peach orchard. She describes walking with her siblings four...
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Susie Mendicelli talks about the life of her Italian-American family in Grand Junction, Colorado, the Mendicelli Bakery, canning and preserving at home, and making sausage and head cheese. She also discusses other Italian-American people and businesses, the history of Grand Junction and the changes she saw in town, and the history of Pitkin Avenue. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
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Voice Recording
Chet Enstrom, producer of the locally famed Enstrom’s Toffee, talks about his life in the candy and ice cream business, his career in the Colorado State Senate, his volunteerism, and his impressions of Grand Junction, Colorado, his longtime home. 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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Voice Recording
Local historian David Sundal talks about the history of Grand Junction, Colorado’s First Church of the Nazarene and about his father Olaf Sundal, a clergyman who presided over the church for many years, beginning in 1930. He talks about the role of local churches in providing food relief to local people and to Dust Bowl migrants during the Great Depression. He also speaks about the row of churches on White Avenue and about the history of churches...
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Fritz Becker, a former officer in the Grand Junction Police Department, discusses crime in Grand Junction, including: murders, the clean-up of prostitution and vice on Colorado Avenue, gambling houses and bootlegging. 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
Harriet “Muzz” Northrop Webster Johnson recalls growing up in Grand Junction, Colorado and discusses the schools she attended, her father’s job at the Holly Sugar Company, her jobs after high school, her marriages, and the history of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. She also talks about starting over as a 58-year-old widower, when she lived and worked as a house mother at the Hawaii School for the Deaf and Blind. The interview was conducted...
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Voice Recording
Mary talks about her early childhood in Kansas as one of nine children and her family's move to Colorado upon the death of her father. Mary details the train and its passengers during the move, including Russian immigrants coming to work the beet fields, and her mother's outreach. She mentions her mothers career training riding horses as a way to support the family. She talks about her relationships, children, and the struggle she faced trying to...
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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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Bertha Schlegel discusses growing up in Loma, Colorado and helping her family raise beets for Holly Sugar, and making sauerkraut, pickled apples, pickled watermelon and other ethnic food with her mother, who was a German immigrant from Russia. She also remembers her education and school activities throughout her childhood, including field days at the Fruita Central School and Grand Junction High School. She talks about obtaining a teaching degree,...
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Voice Recording
Clarence Prinster talks about his father’s meat market and grocery store in La Junta, and about the Prinster brothers moving to Grand Junction in the 1920’s to start a grocery store at their father’s urging. He talks about the founding of the first City Market grocery store at 400 Main Street in 1922, the Prinster’s purchase of the store in 1924, and renovations made. He speaks about the lard rendering business housed first in a shed behind...
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Compound
Earl Land talks about the arrival of his German parents in the United States, their lives in Russia prior to relocating, and their lives in the United States after immigrating. He recalls his early life in Colorado and the West and his education as a mining engineer. He remembers his service as a 2nd Lieutenant in an aviation engineer battalion in the US Army during World War II. He speaks in general about the history of Germans from Russia in the...
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Compound
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...
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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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Voice Recording
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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Voice Recording
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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Voice Recording
Frank Simonetti Jr. talks about the arrival of his Italian immigrant parents in Grand Junction, Colorado, about his school days at the Whitman and St. Joseph’s School, and about the history of the downtown area. He speaks about working for the Citizens Finance Company for many years and about Melvin “Pappy” Due, a founding member and longtime president of the company. He describes what it was like to work for a financing and insurance company...
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Voice Recording
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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Compound
Robert Gustafson talks about the Wisemen’s Club, a Mesa County social and charitable organization to which he belonged in the 1930’s and 1940’s. He remembers the local dance halls and the big bands that played them. He describes growing up in a Swedish portion of the Globeville neighborhood in Denver, his educational background, and how he began working at the Public Service Company at the age of fourteen. He discusses his subsequent career...
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Voice Recording
Harold Zimmerman describes packing fruit during harvest time in the Clifton area, spraying for codling moths, the end of early apple farming in the valley, the train of wagons used to haul fruit on the Midland Trail at harvest time and about a flash flood that devastated Cross Orchards and destroyed 31 Road. He also talks about his career in bookkeeping for Mesa County Valley School District 51 and other organizations, the run on local banks during...
Format:
Voice Recording
Jean and Benerita Dolores (Velazquez) Urruty discuss Jean’s immigrant experience, the life of a Basque sheepherder, Basque culture, and sheepherding in Mesa County. 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.
