People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- Harry Peck
- He was born in Steamboat Springs and came to Mesa County in 1921. He attended school in Grand Junction, and then received a degree in forestry from Colorado State University. After that, he worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Black Hills of South Dakota surveying new timber growth in an area where the first official timber sale of the Forest Service had once been held. From 1935 to 1938, he practiced forestry in Meeker, working as a ranger in the White River National Forest. He also worked in construction in Seattle for many years.
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- Harry Ray Butler
- He was born to Joseah Butler, a road worker for the WPA, and to Eileen Butler, a homemaker who was involved with Grand Junction’s Handy Chapel. He grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado and attended Grand Junction High School, where he played basketball. He married Danielle. He later worked for the Bureau of Reclamation, where he worked in hydrology, measuring water levels in the mountains. He retired when his daughter, Janielle, had her first child, so that he could help care for his grandchild, but returned to work with the Federal Government as a construction inspector. He became the first African-American member of the Mesa County Valley School District 51 Board, and their boardroom is named for him today. He was also the first African-American member of the Grand Junction City Council. He never advertised or fundraised for either position. He started a youth city council program, and they planted a tree in his honor in Lincoln Park. He volunteered at the Mesa County Jail and provided church on Sunday for the female inmate population on Sundays for many years. He took time to visit inmates and volunteered for 45 years in the jail. He was honored by the Black Citizens and Friends organization for his community involvement. Through it all, his daughter Janielle remembers that he remained a strong, humble person.
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- Harry Sylvester Godby
- He was born in Tingley, Iowa and was the oldest of five siblings. His parents were Edward Currier Godby (born 1863) and Edith C. (Hendricks) Godby (Born 1883). The 1910 US Census shows the family living in Kiowa County, Colorado, where Edward was a laborer. In 1916, his father became unable to work so Godby began to work for a local farmer to support the household (he earned twenty dollars a month). In 1917, he ran away from home and got work in a woolen mill (he made $3.60 a day, increased to $4 after an HR dispute over the treatment of a fellow employee). He temporarily worked in a brickyard before returning to the woolen mill. After eight months working as a washer for the woolen mill, he got a position in the weaving department and did that for eighteen months. He lived a fairly nomadic life doing a variety of different jobs, such as crane operating, pile driving, circus work, oil field work, etc. He moved to the Grand Valley area in 1925, first traveling through as a truck driver working for the Robinson Brothers Circus at twenty-two years old. He married Essie (Branscom) Godby in Grand Junction in 1928. In Mesa County, he was for many years a heavy equipment operator, working primarily for Corn Construction. He worked on several buildings on the Western Slope, and may have dug the basement for the Safeway on 5th Street and Grand Avenue that later became the Mesa County Libraries Central Branch (he cites it as the City Market at 4th and Grand). He retired in 1970.
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- Harry Talbott Jr.
- A fruit grower from Palisade, Colorado who led opposition to the development of housing on fruit growing lands during the areas oil shale boom of the 1970’s and 80’s. He served on the Mesa County Planning Commission for six years and helped found the Mesa County Land Conservancy, Colorado’s first land trust organization.