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“Fighting Shirley Chisholm” was the first black woman elected to Congress, in 1968. She was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1924 to a Guyanan father and Barbadian mother, and spent part of her childhood in Barbados on her grandmother’s farm, receiving a traditional, strict British education. She received an MA in elementary education and was […]
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Dudley Mitchell was an early Mesa County resident and an interviewee of the Mesa County Oral History Project. In multiple interviews with Dudley, he discusses his fifty-year employment working an assortment of jobs for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG). If you ever needed any information on how the railroad worked in the early […]
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On Her Own Ground: the life and times of Madame C.J. Walker, by A’Lelia Bundles (the great-great-granddaughter of Walker), is the inspiring story of Sarah Breedlove, born in Louisiana in 1867, and who became the first female millionaire in the United States by starting a beauty business featuring hair products for black women. Orphaned at age […]
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Since the settlement of Mesa County, its citizens have formed community groups to bond socially, for charitable causes, or for the ritual of belonging. Some founded local chapters of established organizations. In 1883 and 1884, recent arrivals formed Masonic Lodge Charter Number 55, Grand Army of the Republic Post 35, a local chapter of the […]
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The awe-inspiring courage of Robert Smalls isn’t as well known as it should be. Born into slavery in 1839 to a slave named Lydia Polite in Beaufort, South Carolina, he was most likely the son of his owner, Henry Mckee. As a teen, he worked as a laborer in Charleston, first in a hotel, then […]
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Imagine what you were like a decade ago – Where you lived, the people you surrounded yourself with, the activities you chose to partake in, your (maybe regrettable) hairstyle. Similar to how you have undergone a mighty transition or two, Mesa County Libraries has had quite the decade of change and growth. One of the […]
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Mesa County Libraries would like to set the record straight regarding our exploration of having a social worker in the library. This topic has received considerable media attention in recent weeks, some of which was inaccurate or incomplete. Foremost, Mesa County Libraries do not plan to hire a social worker. We have neither the budget […]
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So, I was watching Darkest Hour, a sepia-toned and fanciful version of Churchill’s World War II years, chock-full of duty, pluck and chins up. I wanted to know more about him besides the cigar smoking and champagne swilling. I needed facts, and hey, I don’t get my facts from movies, I get’em from books. There is […]
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Before Grand Junction took its water from the Grand Mesa’s watershed, citizens took water directly from the Gunnison River, and with it Diphtheria, Typhoid Fever, and other interesting diseases that were not remedied until the twin advances of proper water management and vaccinations came into being. A May 1883 issue of the Grand Junction News […]
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Teen Reviews presents book reviews and recommendations from teens in Mesa County. Don’t be surprised if you can’t find some of the books mentioned in these posts at the library or in stores: teens who attend Teen Book Club on Wednesdays at 4:00 at the Central Library have access to books before they are officially […]
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