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 […]

Did you know that the Mesa County Fairgrounds at Veteran’s Memorial Park were once known as Uranium Downs? People who attended horse races, motocross, WWF style “wrestling,” and other events back in the day might remember this nod to Mesa County’s mining (and radioactive) legacy. The Mesa County Fairgrounds opened in their current location in […]

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 […]

When Glenn McFall was a teenager riding the rails and looking for work to support his mother and siblings, he landed flat broke in Salida. He had sent all the money he had earned back to his mother, not thinking to save anything for food. He and a friend went door-to-door, asking for something to […]

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 […]