Mesa County Libraries is pleased to present an interview with local activist David Combs, the first in the Mesa County Oral History Project’s new Social Justice Archive (created in partnership with the Black Citizens and Friends organization, Professor Sarah Swedberg, activist Shannon Robinson, and Mr. Combs). The Social Justice Archive will explore the local manifestation […]
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Before The Giving Tree, Toys for Tots, and the other wonderful programs that provide gifts to children in need, there was an organization called The Soup Eaters that helped thousands of Mesa County youth during the holidays.* The Soup Eaters was founded by Al Look during the Great Depression. Look, a columnist and advertising manager […]
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Are you interested in knowing when your home was built, who lived there before and other information? Whether you own or rent your house, you can use these resources to research your house’s history (or your apartment or business’s history, for that matter). Mesa County Assessor records You can use real property records held […]
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Reading through hundreds of oral history transcripts, I’ve found out some interesting things about my hometown of Grand Junction, Colorado. There were teacher-sanctioned boxing matches at the old Clifton School, a bear cub that lived in a South Street brothel, and of course (I mean, who couldn’t see this happening?), the time they allowed a […]
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The Colorado River has been dammed and diverted so many times, by so many entities and people, that it may never truly flood again in the Grand Valley (at least not within humanity’s tenure… although you can never […]
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On June 27, 1943, a freight train traveling west toward Grand Junction, Colorado developed a hot box (an overheated axle) when passing through a rail tunnel in De Beque Canyon. The train stopped in Palisade, where workers repacked the axle. A hot box was always dangerous, but in this case it was especially so, because […]
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Luis López is a born storyteller, and he has many entertaining stories that tell the tale of his colorful life. In his new interview with the Mesa County Oral History Project, you can hear stories of his time in Albuquerque as a boy, and of the Pachuco Spanish that he and his friends spoke. López […]
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Big Foot Mary was well known among ranchers and inhabitants of the Uncompahgre area for having, well, big feet (interestingly, the leader of the last wolf pack in the Bookcliffs and Roan Plateau was reportedly named Old Bigfoot, so maybe […]
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Poaching leads to nothing good. The results can be unbearable. Take the trapper who stole two wild bear cubs from their mother on the Grand Mesa and sold the cubs to interested parties. John Duncan Hart, a longtime state and federal game warden in Mesa County, relates that the cubs went to a brothel on […]
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Imagine a public library where you cannot get into see the books. Ok, so that part is pretty easy, what with the Cornavirus and all. But this crisis with its curbside holds pickup does have historical precedent. Up until the early Twentieth century, and even after that in many places, patrons were not allowed to […]
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