Events
Collection of event entities.
Pages
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- The World Series
- In the early Twentieth century, many towns posted scores of Major League Baseball's World Series games in downtown areas, so that citizens could keep abreast of the games as they happened. Scoreboard operators would change numbers as they received telegram or telephone notices. Later, radio broadcasts of the games were played by loudspeaker for standing crowds on the street. The Daily Sentinel newspaper posted the scores outside their building at 6th and Main Streets in Grand Junction, Colorado.
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- The escape of Betty the monkey from the Lincoln Park Zoo
- Sometime in the 1930’s, a monkey named Betty escaped from the Lincoln Park Zoo. The Lincoln Park Zoo was a small zoo that was located in Grand Junction’s Lincoln Park in the early and mid-Twentieth century. According to William "Bill" Ela, who grew up to become a Mesa County District Court judge, the animal had escaped two times before. The zookeeper had been able to catch her and return her to her enclosure both times. After her third escape, Betty eluded capture. According to Ela, she took up residence on the other side of 12th Street from Lincoln Park. She resided in the trees and on the roof of prominent water lawyer Silmon Smith, who lived in the 1000 block of Chipeta Avenue. If someone tried to capture her from the trees, she went to the roof. If someone tried to capture her from the roof, she went to the trees. The zookeeper finally gave up. Betty’s escape was publicized in the newspaper. Three friends who lived in the Lincoln Park area, Al Look Jr., Bill Ela, and Robert “Bob” Johnson, decided to try and capture Betty. They set a trap baited with bananas at the foot of the tree. At first, Betty eluded capture by holding open the door to the trap while grabbing the bananas. Then, they built an elongated trap that forced Betty farther into it in order to get to the bananas. They captured her and brought her to the greenhouse of Robert Johnson’s father, Stephen “Steve” Johnson, who owned Johnson’s House of Flowers on nearby North Avenue. They informed the zoo that they had the monkey, but the zoo refused to take her back (this according to Ela). Bob built an enclosure for Betty in the greenhouse that was ten feet square and 6 feet high. There she lived for many years. According to Steve Johnson, the boys later captured another monkey, who had perhaps been owned by a Greek American named Gianna Karis. Karis owned a game farm on 1st Street and Patterson Road, and the elder Johnson believed that Oscar, the monkey, may have escaped from there. In the recollection of Ela, Oscar was a monkey borrowed from the zoo in order to breed with Betty. The monkeys did in fact breed and Bob Johnson raised the infant. Betty and Oscar eventually died of old age, but Johnson had Betty’s baby for many years, until Look, Ela, and Bob Johnson all went to college.
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- The killing of William Wood by Rod Day
- Rod Day was the one-time editor of the Durango Democrat, a morning daily (published 1899-1928). According to Al Look, who worked for the rival Durango Herald at that time, Day had been hospitalized for delirium tremens. The publisher of the Herald, McDevitt, instructed his staff and editor, a William Wood, not to write about Day's condition. Wood disregarded this instruction, and published an editorial exposing Day's hospital stay. Unbeknownst to Wood, Day had been released from the hospital on the day the editorial was published. Day saw Wood on Main Street in Durango. He shot Wood in the back of the head as he was crawling away. US Census records show that both Wood and Day grew up in Ouray, Colorado, though Day was Wood's elder by several years.
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- Town of Mesa rodeo
- A rodeo organized in part by cowboy and rancher Walter Richard “Dick” Lloyd. It took place in Mesa and attracted competition from nearby areas. According to Lloyd, the rodeo offered no prize money, but organizations such as the Denver Livestock Commission Company would donate bridles and other prizes. Lloyd often won the roping challenge, while his wife Bertha, a great horseback rider, often won the cowgirl award.
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- Train Derailment near Grassy, Utah
- A Denver and Rio Grande passenger train derailment, described by Mesa County Oral History Project interviewee Dudley Mitchell, that resulted in death and injury to several passengers and crew. The following is a description of the accident and subsequent investigation by the United States Interstate Commerce Commission. Bureau of Safety as published in the Summary of Accident Investigation Reports: "Derailment of a passenger train near Grassy, Utah on May 2, 1923, which resulted in the death of 4 passengers, 2 employees, and 1 trespasser, and the injury of 62 passengers, 9 employees, and 3 other persons. This accident is believed to have been caused by rocking of the tender of the first engine, due to the lateral surge of the water, unevenness in the track, and the speed at which the train was being operated."
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- Typographical Union Strike in Grand Junction, Colorado
- A strike of the Typographical Union protesting the lack of a signed contract with The Daily Sentinel newspaper. The strike was not concerned with wages. Rather, the Union insisted that The Daily Sentinel agree to union control of the Composing Room, following what some who worked there saw as meddling from publisher Preston Walker and the Advertising Department of the newspaper. According to Mesa County Oral History Project interviewee Robert Eugene Grant, the union brought in a mediator to resolve the strike, but the mediator and Daily Sentinel publisher Preston Walker butted heads, and the strike lacked a resolution. The strike was called on August 10, 1956 at 8 pm. Walker and the mediator met several times in the week following in an attempt to resolve the issues underlying the strike. In the meantime, the Sentinel's department heads and departments that did not join the strike worked together all day and night to put out the paper. The Sentinel also brought in scabs from Kansas City, and people who ran mom and pop newspapers from the surrounding area. Preston Walker refused to budge, and the union did not succeed in getting its demands met. However, Sentinel owner and father of Preston Walker, Walter Walker, died soon after as the result of what many considered heartbreak and distress over the strike. Walker was a lifelong Democrat and had always been known as a friend to labor. He felt betrayed by the union's strike.
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- WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca
- WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (previously known as Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Laguna Seca Raceway) is a paved road racing track in central California used for both auto racing and motorcycle racing, built in 1957 near both Salinas and Monterey, California, United States.