People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- George W. Kelly
- He worked as a horticulturalist for the Redlands Company’s large agricultural operations in Mesa County, Colorado. He ran a boys club while he lived in Mesa County and remained involved with youth clubs for the rest of his life. William Rump, whose father Charlie Rump was one of the owners of the Redlands Company, had these remembrances of George Kelly during his oral history interview: “Well, that’s where he got his start and among other things, even in those days, George was a big organizer of kids. There was a group of us boys, varying sizes and ages that George sort of took under his thumb and organized into a semblance of a Boy Scout troop that we worked with George and he helped guide us for a number of years. I think that was his first contact with boys and since then I’ve heard that that’s been his life wherever he goes. He tied in with a bunch of kids and thoroughly enjoyed them… I remember one trip in particular. We took a spring wagon and a team of horses and went up what was then for sure the old Jacob’s Ladder…. we went up and it took two days to drive from here, from the old home ranch, to a cabin not too far from Enoch’s Lake, where we stayed for several days and then came back on the same road.” He later moved to Denver, where he became one of the founders of the Denver Botanical Gardens and its director in the 1950's. According to the Colorado Encyclopedia, he served as the lead naturalist and nurseryman and directed the layout and establishment of the first gardens there in 1951 ("Denver Botanical Gardens"/Colorado Encyclopedia). His papers are housed in the Western History and Genealogy Department of the Denver Public Library.
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- George W. Lunnon
- George owned and operated a cement and construction business with his brother Charles Lunnon.
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- George W. Robinson
- He was born in Illinois. He was a veteran of the Spanish American War, and came to Grand Junction, Colorado in order to recover from a war injury sometime between 1900 and 1904. There he met his future wife, Alice Coombs, who was teaching in Kannah Creek. They married in Salt Lake City in 1904, and lived in Park City for a time. In 1906, he bought a ranch on Salt Creek, near Collbran, where they lived with their child. The family moved again when their daughter, Mary, turned six, this time to the Riverside neighborhood of Grand Junction. He was a machinist, but later worked for the Utah Copper Company as the carpenters’ superintendent, before working for the government on a dam in Rulison, Colorado.
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- George Wallace "Boots" Corn
- A local contractor and the founder of the Corn Construction company, which operated in Mesa County, Colorado for many years.
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- George Wallace Bowman
- An important early Palisade fruit grower. He was born in Ohio to Alexander and Jane Bowman, Scottish immigrants and farmers. The 1860 US Census shows them living in Ruggles, Ohio, when George was five years old. By 1870, the census shows them living in Jackson, Iowa, when George was sixteen. His memoirs, located in the Palisade Branch Library, indicate that he first came to Colorado around 1880, and that he headed to Leadville in January of that year. The 1885 Colorado State Census shows him living in Eagle County, Colorado, with the document showing that he was the proprietor of a saloon. The saloon was likely located in Red Cliff or Leadville. His granddaughter, Priscilla Walker, indicates that he owned the Star Hotel in Red Cliff. Kansas marriage records show that he married Nannie Cutter in Davis County on May 5, 1887. Some other documents show her name as Nancy. According to Walker, they came to Palisade, Colorado in 1893. By 1900, the US Census shows that they were living in Palisade, where they farmed. An oral history interviewee reports that they purchased forty acres on First Street and planted peaches. The 1910, 1920, and 1930 US Censuses list his occupation as fruit farmer. The 1940 census shows his occupation as president of the "National Bank" at the age of eighty-five. He was the president of Palisades National Bank and its principal owner for over thirty years, from 1910 to 1942. He was the founder of the United Fruit Grower's Association. According to Walker, his wife Nanny was the inventor of the Fruit Gathering Bag, a picking sack for peaches (in oral history interviews this invention is called the Bowman Picking Sack). The invention was patented under George Bowman's name in 1900. He died at the age of ninety-five and is buried in Grand Junction's Orchard Mesa Cemetery. *Photograph courtesy of the Palisade Historical Society.
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- George Washington Gordon
- A rancher from a pioneering Mormon family in Mesa County, Colorado. He was born in Adin, California to Patrick Henry Gordon and Caroline Elizabeth (Vanover) Gordon. According to John Gordon’s daughter, Dorothy (Gordon) Mahoney, Patrick Mahoney, his two wives, and their children first came to Grand Junction, Colorado while driving cattle from California to Texas in early 1881. They came through Moab and decided to stay in Colorado, remaining on the other side of the Grand River until the forced removal of the Ute Indians from the Western Slope. Patrick Gordon died in a boating accident on April 1, 1882, leaving George and his family to fend for themselves (Patrick Gordon was buried in a pauper’s grave in the Orchard Mesa Cemetery). The 1885 Colorado State Census shows George living with his older half-brother (born to his father’s first wife), John S. Gordon, and their younger sibling, Edwin Gordon. In 1882-1883, John Gordon established the first ferry in town, which crossed the Grand and Gunnison Rivers at the confluence. It’s possible that George assisted in the operation of the ferry. George and Edwin were cowboys by trade, worked in Arizona in this capacity and in Glade Park, where they worked for the S-Cross Ranch. They later went into the ranching business for themselves, near Gateway. George married May Alveretta Foy of Gateway, on September 29, 1905 in Grand Junction. They had four children. They owned a home at 535 N. 5th Street (now the location of an apartment complex on the corner of Chipeta Avenue). They also owned the 2-V Ranch on Glade Park, which had been owned by the Ela family, from 1910. The Gordons and Elas were apparently friends. According to William McHarg Ela, his grandfather William Phillips Ela and family would summer on the Gordon place. Ela recalled the Gordons owning land that overlooked Unaweep Canyon, and land along the Dolores River. The Gordons purchased the Picture Gallery Ranch on Glade Park in 1916. According to livestock auctioneer Howard Shults, Gordon owned about 12,800 acres of grazing land on the Utah border. He had a permit to winter his cows in the Sand Flats, in Utah, and also owned land near Cisco. Though a cattle rancher at first, George Gordon began running sheep in 1916, after realizing their benefits. According to his daughter, he was one of the first ranchers to switch to sheep on Glade Park. At one time, after he had transitioned to sheep ranching, he purchased 200 head of cattle from Shults, solely so he could set them loose on the land of ranchers who had been putting their own cattle on Gordon’s land. He sold the sheep and purchased the Waring homestead sometime around 1950. Along with Louise (Sieber) Sleeper, he was instrumental in bringing telephone service to Glade Park. He also built the road from Sand Flats to the Dolores River.
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- George Washington Harper Jr.
- He was born in Kansas to George Washington Harper Sr. and Mary J. (Pearson) Harper. His father was a physician and his mother was a homemaker. Marriage records show that he was living in Kiowa County, Colorado by 1905, when he married Henrietta Rhoades. The 1910 US Census shows them living in the town of Towner, Colorado with their first three children. George Washington was working as a farmer. According to George Cecil Harper, George Washington’s son, the family moved to Loma, Colorado later that year, where George Washington took work as a surveyor for the Highline Canal. The family homesteaded land near Loma. They moved to Horsethief Canyon Ranch in 1913, which was being rented by a relative, and lived there for three years. They returned to Loma around 1916. Census records indicate that he remained a farmer for the rest of his life. His wife died around 1925 and he kept his children and the family together (not always a common practice for widowers at that time). He is buried in Fruita’s Elmwood Cemetery.
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- George Washington Peugh
- Owner of the Whitewater general store in the early Twentieth century. He also maintained a telephone switchboard operated by Effie (Johnson) Silzell and others. He was later the office manager for the Colorado Telephone Company in Grand Junction, Colorado.