People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- Harrison Edward Gavin
- First Anglo child born in the Grand Valley. Brother of Estella Taylor.
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- Harrison Edward Stroud
- He was an early Mesa County doctor, and pioneer. He was born in Birmingham, England. He studied as an apothecary in 1856. He moved to America in 1876 and lived first in Iowa. He settled in Grand Junction, Colorado in March 1882. The Grand Junction News mentions him as H.E. Stroud as early as 1882. He was the president of Grand Junction's first school board, elected on June 1, 1882, and responsible for facilitating the construction of the Grand Valley's second school building, an adobe building on Main Street between 7th and 8th Streets (the first being a short-lived wood and mud house on Colorado Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets). He also purchased and operated a drugstore in 1882. He went to the East Coast for medical training, returning in 1885 as a physician. *Some information for this biography was taken from In the Beginning... A History of the Districts and Schools that became Mesa County Valley School District Number 51 by Albert and Terry LaSalle. **Information also taken from Patricia LeMaster's lecture on the history of St. Mary's Hospital
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- Harry "Loyd" Files
- He was born in Winfield, Kansas to Jasper Files and Lillian Grace (Thirsk) Files. His father was a farmer and his mother was a homemaker. He had three brothers. He attended Frog Hollow School in Winfield, Kansas. He completed an 8th grade education and took some correspondence courses. He also studied some engineering at a college in Manhattan. The family moved to Lamar, Colorado in 1914, via covered wagon, when he was fifteen years old. They homesteaded on 360 acres. US Census records shows them living in the town of Caddoa in Bent County, Colorado by 1920, when Loyd was twenty years old. There, the family farmed. During this time, he returned to Kansas and took some engineering courses at Manhattan College. Though Files’ parents stayed in Caddoa for forty years, he left for Mesa County in 1920. He and his brother started homesteads in Glade Park in 1921. They filed on 640 acres each on land abutting the Little Dolores River, about ten miles west of the Glade Park Store. They dry land farmed. They worked clearing their homesteads for seven months of the year, and then hired on for construction work on the Serpent’s Trail over the Colorado National Monument the other five months. Files did some work in the Glade Park store in addition to his work on the homestead. There, he met his future wife, Cordelia Hamliton. He married Cordelia Evelyn Hamilton of Fruita, Colorado in Fruita on April 16, 1924. She was a teacher in various Glade Park schools. He was a heavy equipment operator who helped build a bridge over the Dolores River in 1928. During the Depression, he worked for the WPA on building Rim Rock Drive, and on the road between Fruita and Glade Park. Prior to the Great Depression, he and Cordelia purchased land and cattle from homesteaders and dry land farmers who wanted to leave the area. In this way, they accumulated about 3,000 acres and 35 head of cattle. During the Dust Bowl, conditions on Glade Park ruined his wheat crop. He began working for the US Grazing Service and the CCC as a heavy equipment operator, and for farmers in the Grand Valley as a custom combiner. He and Cordelia adopted two girls, Janis (1935) and Joan (1937). In 1938, with economic conditions and Dust Bowl conditions on Glade Park making profitable farming impossible, they moved to the Grand Valley. They moved first to Fruitvale, where they lived in a log cabin and farmed on five acres. They traded their home to Dale Broome in exchange for his salvage yard at 2028 North Avenue on February 28, 1940 (where Wendy’s is now located, across from the VA Hospital). There, they lived in a shack and then in a small, two-bedroom house that Loyd built. Their children attended the Lincoln Park School. The Files family did much to develop and improve the area. Since potable water was not available east of 12th Street, Files drilled an artesian well in the location of what later became Furrs Cafeteria, at 2817 North Avenue. In 1945, they sold their property on Glade Park and bought the 160 acres between North Avenue and Grand Avenue and 23rd Street and 28 ½ Road. They developed this land between 1945 and 1956. In 1947, they built the Starlight Drive-in, Grand Junction’s first drive-in theater. In 1950, the census shows the two of them both working at a drive-in theater, along with their fourteen-year-old daughter Janis. In 1952, they built a house on 23rd Street, at the east end of the Lincoln Park golf course, on what was still open land. During this time, he was a part founder of the Grand Valley Aircraft Association and of the briefly lived The Morning Sun newspaper. Loyd had a heart attack in 1955 and was advised by a doctor to move to a lower elevation and warmer climate for the winter. They moved to Phoenix until Loyd was healthy enough to return home. They then proceeded to develop the Teller Arms Shopping Center and the Mesa Gardens subdivision, south of North Avenue at 23rd Street. They donated 10 acres of land just east of 28 Road to local children who had played baseball where the subdivision was built. This resulted in the creation of the Grand Mesa Little League. He later traded this land for a tract on 28 3/4 Road, where the league still plays on a field named for him. He and Cordelia were baptized into the Mormon Church on February 27, 1960. He was a part founder of the Senior Citizen’s Foundation and of the United Sand and Gravel Company. He managed a 3 acre produce garden for the Mormon Church and helped to build the church on Orchard Avenue. Along with his wife, he donated $63,000 to the Museum of Western Colorado, where they had both served as volunteer guides in the 1960’s. He was a member of the Grand Junction Lion’s Club, the Moose Lodge, the Free Masons, and the Eagles Club. Hilltop Rehabilitation Hospital’s The Files Center-Day Facility, a place where elderly people and preschool age children could meet, was named for the Files. Mesa County assessor records show that in 1992, two years after his wife's death, he donated the deed to his home at 900 N 23rd Street to Hilltop. The Museums of Western Colorado’s Loyd Files Library is named for him. He died at the age of 107.
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- Harry Augustus Talbott
- • Harry Augustus Talbott (interviewee): He was born to Harry Augustus Talbott Sr. and Nellie Talbott in Kentucky. His father was a farmer and his mother was a homemaker. The family had moved to Colorado’s Western Slope by 1918 and the 1920 US Census shows them living in Delta County, Colorado, when Harry Jr. was 8 years old. The 1930 US Census shows an 18 year old Harry Jr. living in Eckert and working as a farmhand. He married Margaret “Pearl” Yager of Palisade in Montrose in 1933. The 1940 Census shows them living in Dodge City, Kansas with their two children, and Harry running a produce wholesale business. They had moved to Palisade by 1946, when they purchased land and planted an apple orchard. The 1950 Census shows that Harry Jr. ran a chicken farm and fryer plant, probably in addition to running an orchard. The family lived on Highway 340 in East Palisade. He suffered a stroke in January of 1982.
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- Harry B. Peck
- He came to Hayden, Colorado in 1883 and was the Routt County superintendent of schools. Grandfather of Harry Peck.