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, […]

In the early days of Mesa County’s Plateau Valley, specifically the town of Collbran, Colorado, there existed a newspaper called the Plateau Valley Stockman.  The newspaper began in 1901, changed its name to the Plateau Voice in January 1905 until 1929, and lastly went under new ownership and became the Plateau Valley Voice until October […]

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 […]

  Anyone who shops at a grocery store during the holidays has seen Salvation Army workers and volunteers standing outside, wearing the telltale red apron and ringing a bell to collect donations for those in need. Early Mesa County resident Nellie (Edwards) Robbins was one of those people, perhaps the longest to ever stick around […]

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 […]

Feeling nostalgic? Did you or someone you love grow up and attend school in the earlier days of Mesa County? If you’re undergoing a genealogy research project, feel like checking out photos of the awesome hairstyle you were rockin’ forty years ago, or want to bust out your mom’s freshman year picture to embarrass her […]

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 […]