People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- Jerome Aloysius "Jerry" Kiefer
- He was born in Mack, Colorado to Charles Casper Kiefer and Mary Frances (Kopf) Kiefer. He was one of five siblings. His father worked in real estate and later as a farmer. His mother was a homemaker. In 1920, the US Census shows the family living in Fruita. In 1930, they lived in the New Liberty area, near Mack. He grew up exploring his surroundings on foot and horseback. He graduated from Mack Grade School in 1925 and Fruita Union High School in 1929. He worked on the family’s farm and dairy as a child. He left New Liberty in 1932 because of the Great Depression. He married Florence C. Hickner in Indiana in 1935. They had four children. The 1940 US Census shows them living in Fruita, where he worked as a furnace installer. The family settled in Grand Junction in 1944. In 1950, the census shows him working as a sheet metal worker for a plumbing company. He also worked in agriculture, coal, sheet metal, clerking, and bookkeeping. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Roman Catholic Church. He was a charter member and president of the SPEBSQSA. He died at the age of ninety-three and is buried in the Saint Anthony Cemetery.
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- Jerome P. "Joe" Kiefer
- He was born in Brookville, Indiana to Caroline Kiefer and Dominick Kiefer, German Catholic immigrants. His father was a farmer and, according to the 1860 census, a wine grower. The 1870 US Census shows Joe living on a farm in Brookville with his eight siblings at the age of fourteen. The 1880 US Census shows a Joseph Kiefer living in Gunnison, Colorado and working as a miner. He came West with his younger brother Frank in the early 1882, agreeing to work on the Denver and Rio Grande narrow gauge railroad from Gunnison to Montrose in exchange for passage from Indiana to the West. After the line reached Montrose, he and Frank decided to move to the Grand Valley. They walked from Montrose to Grand Junction, swam across the Colorado River, and arrived on October 12, 1983 with $1.35 in cash between them. He and Frank purchased 160 acres of land just east of Fruita in 1883. They platted the land in 1889 and founded the town of Cleveland, named for President Grover Cleveland. With his brothers, he started the Fruita Canal and Land Company, the company that funded and built the Kiefer Extension of the Grand Valley Canal. This enterprise allowed for the irrigation of land between Fruita and Mack. He moved to Alaska in 1899 during the Klondike Gold Rush. He returned with a considerable sum of money and invested in his brothers' next irrigation project, the Redlands Water and Power Company, in 1905. He was the best man at John Otto’s wedding in 1911. According to his great nephew and niece, Jerome and Agnes Kiefer, he was a wanderer who never stayed in any one place too long. He deeded land for the construction of the New Liberty School. He died in the mid-to-late 1920s in California.