Living in Grand Junction, founded in 1882, can skew your perception of just how far back much of Colorado’s history goes. Comparatively speaking, the towns and cities on the Western Slope are much younger than the towns and cities located elsewhere in the state, in large part because this land was reserved by treaty for […]

Deserted, remote, forgotten. With over 1,500 named ghost towns, few states possess more abandoned settlements than Colorado. The promise of prosperity brought thousands into these settlements, only to be left behind when fortunes dried up. The vast majority of ghost towns in Colorado were mining settlements, founded to extract or process raw material from Colorado’s […]

Content Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence and suffering committed against animals. Reader discretion is advised. In the late 19th century, competition between cattlemen and sheepherders over the open range often came to a bloody head in a series of conflicts known as the Sheep Wars. There were huge fortunes to be gained […]

Some criminals achieve fame through cunning, working as masterminds and manipulating law enforcement to evade capture for as long as possible. Others become famous through building criminal empires, creating massive gangs that can rival multinational corporations in scale. Others, like Mesa County’s pioneer bootlegger, Abe Ong, seemingly become famous through sheer audacity. In my last […]

In 1909, Mesa County voted to prohibit the sale of alcohol a decade before the rest of the nation followed suit with the Eighteenth Amendment. Within two months, the first case involving the sale of illegal liquor had made it to county court. “Doc” Powell, a retired bus driver living in a barn, was found […]

The Grand Valley has a reputation as a small, rural area, despite the fact that it’s actually quite urban and populous. As of 2020, Mesa County sports a growing population of 155,703 people, the vast majority of which live in the Grand Valley. With over 10 different communities, it’s the only true metropolitan area in […]

Colorado is a state with a rich history, and one of the best ways to see that reflected is in the diversity of names found in its towns, streets, natural features, and landmarks. In this new series, we’ll take a look at some of the interesting names found around Colorado and nearby areas, and explore […]

Read part one, “Temperance and the Colorado Frontier.” Content Warning: This story describes racist attitudes towards Native Americans during the 19th Century and includes some graphic depictions of violence. Reader discretion is advised. As Nathan Meeker departed from Greeley to the Indian Agency on the White River, he reflected on his past experiences in self-sufficient […]

Read part two, “Ute Removal and the End of the Colorado Frontier” When you think of the Old West, what comes to mind? For most people, it’s images of saloons, drunken cowboys, and whiskey flowing like water. It’s usually assumed that most pioneers had a strong appetite for alcohol, at least outside of Mormon country. […]

On certain quiet evenings, late into the night, it is said that you can hear an eerie whistle noise on the old narrow-gauge railway tracks between Grand Junction and Gunnison. The track begins to rumble, the air turns a sickly color that fills you with dread as the whistle squeals louder and louder until it […]