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Eda Musser talks about life in Delta, Colorado after moving there in 1908, when she was thirteen. She discusses landmarks such as the LeVeta Park School, the Anna-Dora Opera House, and the Delta House Hotel. She describes her involvement in the Spoon Club and other aspects of social life. She speaks about her family’s move west from Illinois using an immigrant car. She talks about meeting and marrying rancher Kelso Musser and their move to Cedar...
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Thelma Moore talks about her youth on a fruit farm in Pear Park, life in early Grand Junction, her involvement in 4-H clubs, the Locust Ranch fruit growing operation in Clifton, and the other members of the Kettle family to settle in that area. She discusses her career as a seamstress and work making drapes, county extension work with quilters, craft competitions at the Mesa County Fair, and chautauquas and variety shows. She also goes into her life...
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In a letter read aloud to his niece, Marion Echternach talks about the history of his immigrant family in the United States, including their settlement in Oklahoma in 1880. He speaks about his boyhood in Peckham, Oklahoma. He discusses the “land boom” in Palisade, Colorado at the beginning of the Twentieth century and his family’s role in settling the area. He remembers visiting his brother Bill, an employee at the Liberty Bell Mine near Telluride....
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Dorothy Ottman discusses her childhood in Grand Junction, fruit growing and agricultural industry in Mesa County, and the social life and customs of women, youth, and others in the Grand Junction area. 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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Adrienne Kaga talks about her childhood growing up in Chicago and her early career as a principal in a private equity fund. She discusses the family histories of her mother, who was Chinese-American, and her father, who was Japanese-American, and their lives in the Pacific Northwest. She also talks in detail about the internment of her father’s family in a Japanese relocation center during World War II, about life, school and work at the camp, the...
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Rose and Morgan Goss discuss the early settlement of Grand Junction and Fruita, Colorado, and agricultural life in the Appleton area. 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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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...
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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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Marjorie Crow talks about her education in the Palisade School and Palisade High School in the 1920’s and 30’s. She speaks about what she did at home for recreation, and about her mother’s piano tutoring business. She describes Christmas programs, and band and chorus activities. She discusses her higher education at Grand Junction Junior College and the University of Colorado. She talks about her life teaching elementary grades in Delta, at...
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William “Mose” Burkitt and Estella (Gavin) Taylor discuss the early history of Fruita, Colorado and Mesa County. 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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Oscar Jaynes discusses childhood memories of Clifton, Colorado, including life on his family’s homestead, a time he climbed inside a giant tire and rolled down a desert hill, and a boxing match at school with future Colorado Supreme Court justice Jim Groves. He then relates tales of traveling the country on freight cars trying to find work during the Great Depression. Oscar also talks a great deal about the fruit business, specifically the peach...
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In a two-part interview carried out over two days, Howard Shults talks about his experiences as a rancher and auctioneer on Colorado’s Western Slope. In part one, he talks about the arrival of his parents in Mesa County in 1903, their teaching careers at Pear Park and in Fruita, and his father’s move to a career as an auctioneer. He speaks about his childhood in Grand Junction and Collbran, his graduation from Grand Junction High School in 1923,...
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Levi Clark discusses the history and agriculture of Palisade, Colorado. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western Colorado. *Photograph from the 1909 Palisade High School yearbook.
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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...
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Albert Phillips Jr. talks about the life of his father, a founder of the United Fruit Growers Association, and about his own career working for the cooperative. He discusses the history of the UFGA and other area fruit growers’ cooperatives, and about the history of fruit growing in Palisade, Colorado. He speaks about migrant workers and German prisoners of war used to harvest fruit during the Depression, and about changes in fruit production, packing...
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Edith Strain talks about her childhood in Iowa and about coming to Clifton, Colorado with her family to farm in 1909. She recounts Clifton’s agricultural past and the history of its town center, especially in regard to schools, churches, and businesses. She speaks about her husband Robert Strain and his work as a farmer, mechanic, and service station owner. She remembers owning a restaurant next door to his service station in Clifton. She talks...
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Early Mesa County resident Virgil Hickman discusses farm life in Palisade and East Orchard Mesa, including irrigation ditches and dams, water rights of farmers and ranchers, hunting deer during the Great Depression, the methods used in keeping peach orchards bug-free, weekly band concerts, making apple butter, and the Palisade Peach Festival. He also talks about building Skyway Road on the Grand Mesa with picks, blasting powder and horses. This recording...
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Thomas Campbell of Clifton talks about the roads, towns, farms, ranches and geography of places throughout Mesa County, Colorado. He speaks about the Molina flour mill in the town of Molina and about the history of local agriculture. He talks about the history of Clifton, its settlement, and churches. He describes early agriculture and methods of clearing the land for crops. He remembers aspects of peach, pear and apple growing, including pests and...