Mesa County Oral History Project
Showing
1 - 4
of 4
, query time: 0.02s
Format:
Voice Recording
Jeanette LeBeau, an early Mesa County resident, talks about climbing Independence Monument with bare feet, Ute Indians who visited her grandparents in pioneer Fruita, summers spent at Leach’s cattle ranch in Pinon Mesa, means of transportation, law enforcement, and prejudice against Catholics in the Grand Valley. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries and the Museums of Western...
Format:
Compound
Cordelia Files talks about the history of her family as early homesteaders in Mesa County, Colorado. She remembers life in Fruita in the early Twentieth century. She recalls working on a ranch near De Beque for her first job at the age of fifteen. She speaks about her life as a teacher instructing all eight grades in a one-room school house, about different episodes from her career in education (including the time a cat came to school), and about...
Format:
Compound
In this recording, Alta Nolan reads the memoirs of Cordelia Files. Files talks about the history of her parents and maternal grandparents who homesteaded in the Fruita, Colorado area in the 1890’s. She describes the fruit growing operation on the homestead. She recounts seeing the Ute people and Chipeta when they came in the fall to dry fruit from the orchard. She remembers early Fruita, with its dirt streets and plank sidewalks. She speaks about...
Format:
Voice Recording
John Collier talks about his upbringing on a farm in Grand Junction, Colorado, on ranchland and farmland in the Redlands, and on a homestead in Pinon Mesa. He speaks about the history of the Sleeper and Ela family’s ranching operations on Pinon Mesa. He describes his Uncle Joe Collier, who served as the Mesa County Sheriff during Prohibition, and a bootlegger’s attempt to blackmail him. He discusses what he perceives as the effect of uranium prospecting...
