If you’ve lived in Mesa County for a few years or have strolled around the Colorado National Monument more than once, you are most likely familiar with the legendary John Otto. John Otto was the custodian, founder, and undoubtedly the biggest cheerleader for our beautiful Colorado National Monument, a place of canyons and grandeur that […]

If you’re at all drawn to Martha Stewart, Pinterest, and food preservation, you may get excited about canning fruits and vegetables.  This process has been used for generations to sustain foods in airtight storage to last through tumultuous winters, or simply to snack on during any season. With the abundance of early 1900s fruit and […]

  If you’ve seen the classic movie Dumb and Dumber, you may recall a scene in which a policeman calls whiskey “Grandpa’s old cough syrup.”  This famous phrase may have stemmed from parts of the country like Mesa County! Back in the early days of the Western Slope, there were many remedies for illness or […]

One of the most desirable spots for recreation in all of Mesa County is unarguably the Grand Mesa. At an area of about 500 square miles, the Grand Mesa is the world’s largest flat-top mountain. Tens of thousands of years ago, this geologically unique feature was born from a burst of extreme volcanic activity, causing […]

  Back in the wild, smartphone-less days of the west, sometimes all a man had to do with his time was to kick back, reflect, and write a bit of poetry. Kip Wood was one such man.  Kip was an early Colorado pioneer and cowboy who spent a winter with Butch Cassidy and befriended local […]

Palisade peach season– it’s finally here! For over 125 years Palisade, Colorado has been utilizing the area to grow peaches that are loved far and wide. The first peach trees were planted in 1882 by a man named John Harlow who described the peaches as “ripening in the sun acquired a brilliant color not found […]

This past weekend, the Grand Junction Regional Airport in Colorado and West Star Aviation hosted a spectacular air show featuring the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.  The crowds looked on in awe as the experienced flyers executed great skill and performed exciting stunts over the Grand Valley region.  I feel accomplished when I parallel park my […]

In early Mesa County, first there was the fruit boom, then came uranium. The Grand Valley experienced an explosion of activity like no other in the 1940’s when it became “The Uranium Capitol of the World.” Unbeknownst to me before listening to Wayne Farley’s Mesa County Oral History Project interview, the Manhattan Project was a […]