Elegantly appointed La Court Hotel a destination for the rich and famous

Part One of a two-part series on the history of the opulent La Court Hotel. Once upon a time, Grand Junction had a hotel that was as elegant as the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs. It was La Court Hotel, and it sat grandly at the corner of Second and Main streets, convenient to the train depot through which flowed most of the area’s travelers in the early 20th century. Long before visitors began to arrive by limousine from the airport, the hotel’s horse-drawn vehicle, ...

---

Engineering marvel Unaweep Canyon Hanging Flume to be reconstructed

The hanging flume, of which 7 of its 13 miles clings to a red-rock wall along the San Miguel River in the San Miguel and Dolores Rivers canyons, might leave viewers wondering why and when this wooden structure was built. Gold was discovered in the San Juan Mountains in 1875 and it didn’t take long for those seeking their fortune to starting staking their claims. From 1883 to 1885 the Lone Tree Mining Company filed 6 1/2 miles of claims along the San Miguel River. One of them was the ...

---

Cross-country cyclists got the royal treatment

When Marty Panizzon, 23, and Steve Rose, 22, pedaled into Grand Junction in August 1961 on a coast-to-coast bike trip, they had no idea they were about to be tapped as “Tourists of the Week.” The duo’s United States coast-to-coast trip began at the end of a seven-month European adventure that started in 1960 and spanned two continents. Panizzon and Rose told The Daily Sentinel reporter who interviewed them they had started their European adventure in their hometown of ...

---

Female engineer broke tunnel taboo in 1972

When Janet P. Bonnema first stepped into the Straight Creek Tunnel in 1972, no one expected the project to be a defining moment in the women’s equal rights movement. Her story began in November 1970 when Janet, who was living in Georgetown, applied for several job openings with the Colorado Highway Department. Janet was qualified; she had earned a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Colorado, she was under the age of 68, and she had passed the required ...

---

Separate hotel rooms, racial stereotypes taint mid-century GJ past

This is the second in a three-part series about Harry Butler’s family, whose Grand Junction roots stretch back to 1888. Harry Butler was born in Grand Junction and grew up surrounded by family with deep roots in the community and in Handy Chapel. His Grand Junction lineage traces back to 1888 when his three great-uncles came to Grand Junction and two of them, John and Samuel, purchased property in May 1891. His connection to Handy Chapel goes back that far, too, because his family ...

---

Early GJ settler, born a slave, was noted orchardist

This is the first in a three-part series about Harry Butler’s family, whose Grand Junction roots stretch back to 1888. When Harry Butler and his family go to church Saturdays at Handy Chapel, they are carrying on a family tradition that started in 1892, when his great-uncles, John, Samuel and Clark Hines, worshipped at the church. Harry’s great-uncles came here in 1888 from Cameron, Mo. They were the sons of Elijah Hines, a black man born into slavery, and his wife, ...

---

‘Fotografer’ Frank Dean preserved images of early Grand Junction life

When Frank Dean opened his photography shop at the corner of Fifth Street and Rood Avenue in 1900, the sign on his building read “Fotografer Dean.” Soon after his doors opened, Dean had a visit from a farmer who was there to correct Dean’s spelling. Dean was amused and told the farmer the unique spelling was meant to attract attention and bring people into his shop. It was an intentional error. Dean kept that spelling on his storefront for nearly 45 years. Every ...

---

Deadly confrontation in Utah took place shortly before GJ incorporated

Pinhook battleground is the southeastern Utah site of the largest and most tragic Indian-white confrontation ever in terms of numbers killed. The Pinhook Battle took place on June 15, 1881, just three months before the town of Grand Junction incorporated. The Meeker Massacre had been fought two years before. In 1940 Jordan Bean, the only remaining survivor of the Pinhook Battle, recounted the event in a letter to the Moab Times-Independent. Trouble between the cattlemen and Indians began ...

---

Neither press problems nor fire stopped Sentinel since 1893

The Daily Sentinel has again retained its proud record of never missing a day of publication. Events last Sunday in which the newspaper had to be published by the Montrose Daily Press because of electrical problems with the Sentinel’s press brought back starkly the day the Sentinel pressroom caught on fire on Tuesday, April 9, 1974. My husband, Teddy, and I were working at The Daily Sentinel then and had gone to see the movie “The Sting” that night. As we came out of the ...

---

Fence-hopping WWII soldiers danced the night away at YMCA

Julie Mendicelli Wasielewski grew up at 346 Pitkin Ave. in Little Italy, a neighborhood bordered by First and Fifth streets, and Colorado Avenue and Fourth Street. When she was growing up there she was unaware it was called Little Italy. It was simply where several of Grand Junction’s Italian families lived. Julie said it was a great neighborhood where the kids all played together, although even then Whitman Park was off-limits because “hobos” lived there. One of the ...

---

World-class talent graced GJ stage in 1892 opera house

On Oct. 17, 1891, the Grand Junction News jubilantly reported that big-time theater was soon to be available to the town. “Our people have long felt the want for a first-class play house and every evidence now points to the early consummation of a project that will give Grand Junction theatrical advantages enjoyed only by the larger cities of the state,” a News reporter wrote. The stage had been set when the Park Building Co. purchased the Albert F. Paff livery stable in the ...

---

Italian mason was an artist with local stone

Nunzio Grasso: The name has an artistic ring to it. The name was a good fit for stonemason Nunzio Grasso, who first came to America in 1881 to live with an uncle in Altoona, Pa. Al Grasso of Grand Junction said his grandfather, Nunzio, told him the first order of business when he came to America was to learn to read and write English, so that no one could fool him. He returned to Italy for several years, coming back to America in 1901 with his first wife, Concetta, and their 1-year-old ...

---

Quail first introduced to this area in 1890s

When I am driving around in the country, it is always a pleasure to see a mama quail leading her babies along the way. I had assumed all these years — and we all know that you should never do that — that quail were indigenous to our area. I was wrong.              Fellow researcher Marie Tipping found this tidbit in the March 5, 1892, Grand Junction News: “Some time ago, The News published the fact that Mr. N.J. Krusen had ...

---

West valley Horsethief ranch nearly self-sufficient in 1890s

This is the first in a two-part series. Nestled at the head of Horsethief Canyon, below the Loma boat dock, is Horsethief Canyon Ranch, surrounded on the east, north and west by a curving wall of rock. The southern view from the ranch house looks across the Colorado River to the red rock terrain west of Colorado National Monument. The house is surrounded by cottonwood trees as old as the structure itself. The area is so named because it was the perfect spot for horse thieves and cattle ...

---

Air conditioning at movies worth admission

In the 1930s, air conditioning was a new thing in movie theaters in Grand Junction, and summer heat made the theater a good way to spend a hot summer afternoon. Home air conditioning was almost nonexistent, so the theater was most likely one of a few places where people could escape the sweltering heat. My husband, Teddy, said that as a kid in the early 1950s, he liked to go to a movie to cool off. He and his friends would save the tops of the caps on milk bottles. These could be cashed ...

---

1930s-era Grand Junction boasted four movie theaters

When I think of old theaters, I remember the story of Anna Sage, who agreed to wear a red dress to the theater to tip federal agents to the identity of notorious 1930s gangster and bank robber John Dillinger, who was at the movie. G-men surrounded the Biograph theater in Chicago in July 1934, and when Dillinger emerged with Anna and his date, Polly Hamilton, they shot and killed him. Nothing that dramatic took place in Grand Junction during the 1930s, when there were four downtown ...

---

Fruita Museum building embedded with fossils

“Rock-A-Day” sounds like a song about working on a chain gang. Instead, it was the nickname given to the Fruita Museum when it was being constructed in the 1930s. The Fruita Museum Society was formed in 1937 to build a museum. The first board members, C.S. Kirkendall, president; Philip Griebel, vice president; Mary B. Roberts, secretary-treasurer; and the rest of the board, Ellen Kilby, Mabel Kiefer and Lee Warner, were successful with the help of the Works Projects ...

---

Midcentury doctors founded walk-in clinic, post-hospital care

Some time ago, a reader emailed to ask if I knew of a hospital that had been in the 700 block of Main Street. She said she could remember it from when she was a little girl and lived in the neighborhood. I replied and told her I would see what I could find out. After a little searching, we found that indeed there had been a hospital in the 700 block of Main. It was Mesa Memorial Hospital. Drs. Owen Taylor, an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist, and Roy Dorwart, a specialist in ...

---

Lincoln Park campground drew auto travelers in ‘20s, ‘30s

When I think of campgrounds, the idea of one being located in a city park had never popped into my head. So I was intrigued when Marie Tipping gave me a copy of a story about the campgrounds at Lincoln Park, which ran in The Daily Sentinel in November 1925. From the newspaper account, the campground had been very popular with more than 7,000 people, representing every state in the union along with Canada and Mexico, between April 1 and Nov. 20, 1925. The city charged 25 cents a car per ...

---

Residents had ‘foresight’ to save downtown in the era of strip malls

A meandering Main Street flanked by colorful flowers and graceful trees seemed a radical concept for staid downtown Grand Junction in the late 1950s. Like most small cities, its downtown business center then was a ho-hum expanse of concrete sidewalks and streets, hot in the summer and cold in the winter, unexciting and colorless. But that concept was to change in the early 1960s. “At this moment there is a disease called ‘decentralization’ spreading though the United ...

---

Botanical gardens started with dedicated group in the mid-‘80s

The Western Colorado Botanical Gardens has been in the news a lot lately, which brings back memories of the devoted group of folks who got together in 1984–85 and formed the nonprofit group: The Western Colorado Botanical Society. The vision was to view the natural beauty and wonder of a botanical garden here in Grand Junction so people would no longer have to travel to Denver to do so. That first meeting — with about 15 people — was held in the then-vacant First ...

---

Green River Friendship Cruise a 50-plus year tradition

Mark Peterson was only a kid when he went on his first Friendship Cruise with his father, Pete, in 1957. They traveled in a boat built by his grandfather, Arnold Feller, and Mark fell in love with the beauty and history of what was then a 197-mile trip. Mark said a group of people from Green River and Moab, Utah, who had formed Canyon Country River Marathon Association and a group from Grand Junction who had formed the Colorado River Skippers joined together because they wanted to do boat ...

---

Land grab may have been mistake, or claim-jumping

Whether he had intended to claim-jump or whether early-day records were simply haphazard, William Keith stirred up a pot of trouble when he filed his claim for what became Grand Junction’s Keith Addition. Today the Keith Addition boundaries are 12th Street and 15th Street on the west and east and the south side of Grand Avenue to the south side of Pitkin Avenue on the north and south. But in 1881 when Keith staked his claim, the boundaries were Ninth Street on the west and 15th ...

---

Digging proves Pabor’s 1883 Seventh Street home still standing

If you are trying to tie early-day Grand Junction residences and businesses to today’s city maps, you need the tenacity of a bulldog and the ability to put facts together like Sherlock Holmes. When Marie Tipping, my husband Teddy and I started gathering deeds from 1882 through 1883, we had no idea where our “deed digging” was going to take us, or what we might dig up. The project started because we knew there had to be a better way of finding who owned the first lots ...

---

Depot open for National Trains Day

In two days, it will be May again and the time of year when the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Colorado Historical Society celebrate Archaeology and Historic Preservation Month. To celebrate National Train Day, Saturday, May 7, The Friends of the Grand Junction Depot invite the community to join them in greeting California Zephyr passengers arriving on the eastbound train, estimated arrival 10:30 a.m., and the westbound train, estimated arrival 3:30 p.m. The grand old ...

---

Grand Junction’s first church became school, then was no more

Just one year after the 1882 incorporation of the town of Grand Junction, the pioneer community got its first house of worship, the First Methodist Episcopal Church South. From the description in The Grand Junction News, it was a “handsome brick structure with six stained glass windows.” Marcus B. Ross, John F. Gavin, J.L. Duckett and J.B. Duckett were listed as incorporators for the church. Before the church was built, the congregation worshiped at the Town Company’s ...

---

Handy Chapel to get a hand from HistoriCorps volunteers

Some really great preservation work is going to happen right here in River City on May 3–6 at Handy Chapel, 202 White Ave., and this is a shout-out for volunteers to help with the project. For several years the chapel house, a residence on the church property, has been in need of repair. Some of those repairs are now going to happen, thanks to Colorado Preservation Inc. and HistoriCorps. Handy Chapel was placed on the Colorado Most Endangered Places list for 2011. As soon as the ...

---

Quonset huts first housed WWII soldiers, then civilians

Over the years, the Quonset hut, which made its debut as a military building during World War II, has been one of the best examples of re-use of a building. It could be the poster child for historic preservation of buildings. First, a little Quonset hut history. “Quonset” is an American Indian word meaning “small, long place.” In 1941, the U.S. Navy commissioned the George A. Fuller construction company to design a lightweight, prefabricated building that could be ...

---

Did Wild Bunch rob Parachute train or were authorities fooled?

On June 7, 1904, a train robbery gone bad might have brought down Kid Curry, one of the most-wanted members of the Wild Bunch gang — and then again, maybe not. The Wild Bunch was immortalized in the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” The gang attained legendary fame in the early 1900s by robbing banks, transports and trains. When practicing their trade in Colorado and Utah, they made their home at “Robbers Roost” in southeast Utah. Our tale ...

---

‘Uranium King’ Charlie Steen started out in Cisco tar-paper shack

Second in a two-part series on the history of Cisco, Utah. Growing up in Cisco, Utah, was good. So says George Seely, now a Grand Junction resident, who moved to Cisco with his parents as a young child in 1944. His father was the signal maintainer for the railroad, and when they first moved to Cisco they lived in an outfit car — a boxcar fitted up like a trailer house. After moving to Cisco, George’s sister Sue was born. Now Sue Brown, she also lives in Grand Junction. George ...

---

Food, drink among things once available in Cisco

First in a two-part series on the history of Cisco, Utah. # # # Today if you happen to drive through the tiny hamlet of Cisco, Utah, on U.S. Highway 6&50, you might be intrigued to know that the ghost town was once a thriving community. The present-day Cisco is not the original town. In 1883 the first Cisco was located on the narrow-gauge railroad about two miles northwest of the present town. John Martin, a surveyor, settled at the original Cisco site and applied for a post office, ...

---

Fruita first to get safe drinking water

Today when there is a news story reporting on Third World countries not having safe domestic water, it is difficult to imagine. However, that is the way it was here in the Grand Valley in the early days. At least it was until 1907 when Fruita became the first town in the valley to get drinking water from a safe mountain supply. Before that, residents hauled typhoid-contaminated water from the river or irrigation ditches. On June 27, 1905, A.A. Betts, mayor of Fruita, filed on the water ...

---

Art Center started with fund drives in the 1950s

Mesa County, with its spectacular natural scenery, has always had its own small artists’ colony. But until the early 1950s, nobody did much to display that beauty. A few years after World War II, several civic-minded people had a vision of an art center for western Colorado and set about making their dream a reality. No one in the group trying to put together the center was a noted artist, and most of them painted mainly because they loved painting. Among that original group were: ...

---

Rumors murmured after fatal accident of cowboy Charlie Glass

Final in a three-part series about legendary Fruita cowboy Charlie Glass. In the early morning hours of Feb. 23, 1937, legendary cowboy Charlie Glass died from injuries he received in an auto accident. His friends figured he was about 65 years old. His death occurred one day short of being the 16-year anniversary of the day he shot and killed Felix Jesui at the height of a feud between cattlemen and sheepmen over grazing rights. The night before the accident, Glass sat in on a game at ...

---

Grazing disputes go to lethal extremes for sheepmen, ranchers

Second in a three-part series about legendary Fruita cowboy Charlie Glass. Range wars between cattlemen and sheepmen were common in the early years of the 20th century and, in 1921, legendary cowboy Charlie Glass became deeply involved in one. For years, many cattlemen let their animals roam thousands of acres in eastern Utah and western Colorado, some of which was leased from the Indians and the federal government. A constant feud existed between cattlemen and sheepmen over range ...

---

Charlie Glass was a dandy cowpuncher

First in a three-part series about legendary Fruita cowboy Charlie Glass. Charlie Glass, the cowboy in the white Stetson, became a legend in his own time in ranching circles in western Colorado and eastern Utah. Glass, said to be three-quarters African-American and one-quarter Cherokee, arrived in Grand Junction in 1909 with a string of horses belonging to Thatcher Brothers of Pueblo, who also owned the S-Cross ranch on Piñon Mesa. He didn’t talk much about his life before ...

---

Historic Grand Junction chapel due for improvements after listing

Grand Junction’s Handy Chapel is due for some improvements by HistoriCorps in 2011. HistoriCorps is a preservation initiative modeled after community service programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and Americorps. The chapel, which primarily serves some of Mesa County’s black community, was placed on Colorado’s 2011 Most Endangered Places List by Colorado Preservation Inc. during the Saving Places luncheon Thursday in Denver. Colorado Preservation Inc. is a ...

---

Unearthed headstone leads columnist on trail of history mystery

The headstone read: “Peter Buck, 11th Michigan Militia, Black Hawk War.” Neither date of birth nor date of burial was etched into the stone. There were 60-foot markers, perhaps left accidentally by the town undertaker, along with it. The headstone and grave foot markers were unearthed several years ago in the southeast section of Grand Junction’s original town square mile, when they were discovered buried under a layer of cement. The owner of the headstone and foot ...

---

Early day Grand Valley school resisted consolidation

One hundred years ago this year, the first consolidated school in Colorado was built. Though built in 1911, the first classes were not held until 1912. Although the current building is not the original, the site retains historical significance because it is the site of the first Appleton School. At first, there was bitter opposition to the consolidation of the one-room Corcoran School, which was predominately Catholic; the two-room Loback School, which was Protestant; and the two-room ...

---

Petty disputes led to Plateau City on Grand Mesa

There are two different stories on the origin of Plateau City. One story is told by Reuben A. Pitts in his book “The Bull and the Bees or the Facts of Life in the Plateau Valley.” Pitts writes that Sam Kiggins wanted to put in a lumberyard and hardware store in Coll-bran. When T.G. Underhill of Collbran objected,  Kiggins became angry and told Underhill, “OK, Bub, I’ll fix you! I’ll start a town of my own.” The other story was told by Helen ...

---

Cheney Reservoir, planned since 1887, a bird-watching oasis

Cheney Reservoir, less than 20 miles southwest of Grand Junction on U.S. Highway 50, is an oasis in the middle of the desert. Today Cheney is a great place for bird-watchers to view a wide assortment of waterfowl, shorebirds and other water-loving birds. Kathleen McGinley, a local bird-watcher, said that on her last visit in November her group spotted a Canada goose, Northern pintail (duck for non-birders), ring-necked duck, sandhill crane, horned lark, mountain bluebird and American coot. ...

---

Woman left legacy for birders, wildflower enthusiasts

Lucy Ferril Ela stood only 5 feet tall, but she was a giant among the birders of the world. A section of the Colorado Riverfront Trail system honors her efforts in organizing the Audubon Society in Grand Junction. Here is Lucy’s story, so that when you’re on the Riverfront Trail and see the Grand Valley Audubon Society Lucy Ferril Ela Wildlife Sanctuary and Audubon Trail near Connected Lakes State Park, you know about her and what she did for our community. Lucy was born in ...

---

Sub for Santa buoyed Depression-era families

The headline read “Sub for Santa – Adopt a Christmas Thrill” and was followed by a picture of a young girl about 7 years old. She was wearing a ragged dress and scuffed shoes and was holding a squirming puppy. The story made it clear she wasn’t going to have Christmas. Her parents couldn’t afford it. That was 1938, when American was in a deep Depression. Her family, like many others in “shanty town,” needed to be adopted through the Sub for Santa ...

---

Otto’s bride refused to live the outdoors life

When Colorado National Monument founder John Otto and artist Beatrice Farnham announced their engagement in May 1911, they undoubtedly believed, like many a soon-to-wed couple, that they were going to live a long and happy life together. Instead of a lengthy life of wedded bliss, their marriage was followed by a quick separation and, eventually, divorce. In interviews with John and Beatrice shortly before they exchanged vows, they emerged as independent thinkers who shared radical ...

---

Early Grand Junction home to 20 rough-and-tumble saloons

In 1882, Grand Junction was a bustling, wild frontier town. The full-time population of Grand Junction was 524 people. As the railroad came closer to Grand Junction, the population of railroad men, teamsters and others working on the building of the railroad added up to 300 people. A “Hell on Wheels” tent town popped up overnight that was pretty much lawless. The new city was experiencing the problems that came with the crews who, upon reaching town, did their fair share of ...

---

Grand Junction’s first newspaper chronicled a booming town

There is no better way to catch the excitement of the rapidly growing infant Western town of Grand Junction than from its newspaper. And the Grand Junction News, the first newspaper in Grand Junction, is a treasure trove for insight into the time machine. These news items also make it clear that Colorado Avenue, or “the Avenue” as it was referred to, was where most of this development was taking place. Looking through items in the Grand Junction News from Oct. 28, 1882, ...

---

Fairmount Hall built in 1922 as a meeting place

Fairmount Hall, that small building directly south of the Ale House on 12th Street, has been an important part of the Fairmount Community for 88 years. The idea for a meeting place for Fairmount residents started in March 1916, according to a 1973 interview with Frank Jaros Sr. Neighborhood families, including the Goffs, Bendas, Ziglers, Kisters, Brodaks, Sanfords, Forreys and Judge Straud Logan, would visit in their homes because there was no large place to meet. At the time, the ...

---

1970 circus-tent tosser wasn’t a twister

There already was a strong wind blowing in from the southwest early in the evening when the crowds started arriving at the James Bros. circus tent that had been set up at Files Park on 28 Road on May 20, 1970, for the 6 p.m. show. With just 15 minutes and two acts from the end of the show, a strong blast of wind snapped the guy ropes along the south edge of the tent and carried the tent and poles up and across the arena, dumping them behind the grandstand on the north side where most of ...

---

Some took a dim view of GJHS homecoming prank

Homecoming festivities for Grand Junction High School had started on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 7, 1971, with a spirit march from the school to Main Street, where a pep rally was held. Friday afternoon the homecoming parade wound its way down Main Street with marching bands performing for the crowds. The Tiger homecoming queen and her attendants, riding on one of the colorful floats decked out in their formal attire, had performed without a hitch. Festivities had Grand Junction Tiger ...

---

Mesa summer theater a boon to tourism

With a grandfather who ran a medicine show and a father who worked in a Charleston, W.Va., opera house, it seems inevitable that William S. “Bill” Robinson would end up in show biz. And, although he almost abandoned the stage several times, the retired head of the Mesa College Drama Department became co-director of the college’s outstandingly successful summer theater series, which ran for some 20 years. When Bill first started teaching at Mesa in 1960, there was no ...

---