In 1912, Eugene Debs, the union leader, fiery orator, and perennial socialist candidate for president, received over  900,000 votes during the presidential election, or 6% of the popular vote (consider that before women’s suffrage and our country’s population expansion, the number of eligible voters was far lower than today). In the aftermath of the Panic […]

If you have ever taken the Durango Silverton or stopped in Silverton for a rest during a nail biting and beautiful drive on Highway 50, you may have come across the Grand Imperial Hotel, an old and intriguing building that thrives with tourist traffic. Is the Grand Imperial Hotel haunted? It might be, according to […]

Sometime in the 1910’s, Indian Henry, a Ute raised by white settlers in the Paradox Valley, was shot and killed by his friend, the Finish immigrant and miner John Keski. The shooting took place in a boarding house in Bull Canyon that was owned by W.L. Cummings and run by Laura Foster (who had been […]

Since moving to Grand Junction in 1985, Patrick Metoyer has contributed greatly to the civic life of our Happy Valley hamlet. Like prior Mesa County Oral History Project interviewees Al Look and, more recently, Evelyn Kyle, Metoyer is a jack-of-all-trades, a renaissance man whose accomplishments include creations and awards in several areas of the arts, […]

                          Wolves have not been seen in Western Colorado since ranchers and government hunters finished killing them off in the 1920’s, so the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s recent announcement that a pack of wolves may be living in Moffat County is exciting news […]

Mesa County locals may know William E. Pabor as the person who founded the Fruita Town and Land Company and thus, the town of Fruita in 1884. But did you know that Pabor also began writing poetry at a young age, and became a nationally-known poet before embarking on a lifelong journey of town building, […]

The Mesa County Oral History Project contains some unexpected recordings, such as a meeting of the Last Squad Club (a group of World War I veterans), the True Epics of Western Colorado radio plays that aired on KREX in the late 1950’s (and announced in part by Solon Gray, who later became a TV reporter […]

Most Grand Junctionites know about Rocket Park, Lincoln Park, and the other larger parks that draw kids from throughout the valley. But the city also has some quirky little parks that not many people know about. Hillcrest Park forms the inner part of a cul-de-sac in the Hillcrest neighborhood, bears no sign that I can […]