Organizations
Collection for organization entities.
Pages
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- Grand Army of the Republic
- The "Grand Army of the Republic" (GAR) was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army (United States Army), Union Navy (U.S. Navy), Marines and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service who served in the American Civil War for the Northern/Federal forces. Founded in 1866 in Decatur, Illinois, and growing to include hundreds of posts (local community units) across the nation, (predominately in the North, but also a few in the South and West), it was dissolved in 1956 when its last member, Albert Woolson (1850–1956) of Duluth, Minnesota, died. Linking men through their experience of the war, the G.A.R. became among the first organized advocacy groups in American politics, supporting voting rights for black veterans, promoting patriotic education, helping to make Memorial Day a national holiday, lobbying the United States Congress to establish regular veterans' pensions, and supporting Republican political candidates. Its peak membership, at more than 490,000, was in 1890, a high point of various Civil War commemorative and monument dedication ceremonies. It was succeeded by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW), composed of male descendants of Union Army and Union Navy veterans.
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- Grand Imperial Hotel (Silverton, Colo.)
- It was originally known as the Grand Hotel and was part of the Thompson Block commissioned by W.S. Thompson in 1882, with construction completed in 1883. According to the website of the still extant hotel, it was the largest structure south of Denver at that time and a "pinnacle of luxury" in the Southwest. Its first floor housed the post office, bank, Bureau of Mines, general store, doctor's office, and Silverton Standard Newspaper. The second floor housed the county and town government. The hotel was purchased by Winfield Morton of Texas in 1950, but he went into foreclosure after lavishly refurbishing the hotel (Dave Fishell, Silverton's Imperial Hotel, The Daily Sentinel, March 23, 1980). Longtime Silverton resident Lew Parcell became the hotel's owner-manager in 1958, and he kept the hotel until selling out to the Broadmoor Hotel's ownership group in 1963. It was remodeled in 2015, and is now owned by American Heritage Railway Hotels, whose owners are also affiliated with the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The name of the hotel changed over the years to Imperial Hotel, and then to Grand Imperial Hotel.
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- Grand Junction Baseball Team (Grand Junction, Colorado)
- A team comprised of local citizens, organized in the early 1920's. The Grand Junction town baseball team was sponsored by the Grand Junction Electric Company. Men from the town, many of them accomplished players, played for the team. S.O. Harper, who had played varsity sports with the University of California, was on the team. Fred Clyde Martin, of Martin’s Mortuary, also played. Other players included Bill Roan, Henry Hall, Frank Llewellyn, and Chauncey Bullock. The team competed against teams from other towns in the area. According to oral history interviewee Richard Williams, S.J. Johns managed the team for many years. His son Jerry played shortstop. Orlo Williams often umpired. The team played their games at the Mesa County Fairgrounds (in what later became Lincoln Park).
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- Grand Junction Cancer Society
- An organization founded by physicians Everett H. Munro and Herman Graves, with Al Look as their publicity person. It was a member of the Colorado Cancer Society and American Cancer Society. The society brought in the pathologist Dr. Saccomanno, who established his own laboratory at St. Mary’s Hospital, where local doctors could send biopsies to be examined. Previously, doctors had had to send biopsies to Denver for examination.
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- Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce
- An organization that advocates for Grand Junction businesses and for the business climate in town. It has its roots in the early Twentieth century. It operates today at 360 Grand Avenue, in a building that opened in 1982. According to Penelope (Brown) Eberhart, whose father Harry Lewis Brown was involved in the Western Slope's early oil shale industry, the Chamber had an ongoing interest in the industry's success.
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- Grand Junction Country Club (Grand Junction, Colorado)
- A country club that owned and operated a club house and nine-hole golf course from August 1921-1937 on the Redlands at 2463 Broadway. When the organization dissolved during the Great Depression, the buildings were sold to Redlands Women's Club, who raised the money to do so through bake sales and other fundraisers.
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- Grand Junction Fruit Growers Association (Mesa County, Colorado)
- A cooperative organized by local fruit growers in Mesa County, Colorado in 1893. It was managed by John Moore, a farmer, for several years. According to attorney Silmon (Laird) Smith, whose father Frank Smith was an early fruit grower in Mesa County, the association formed when it was found that “commission men” in Denver were misrepresenting the quality of Grand Junction’s fruit when it arrived in Denver. The Denver commission said that the fruit was in bad shape and then paid the Grand Junction growers less money for the fruit. When a Grand Junction grower traveled to Denver to check on the claims and found they were not true, the Grand Junction farmers issued a complaint. A representative from the commission came from Denver. He held a meeting with local farmers on 4th Street. During this meeting, Frank Smith accused the commission man of being a thief. The commission man knocked Smith down. The men then decided to form the Grand Junction Fruit Growers Association. Fruit growers from California traveled to Grand Junction to study the operations of the Association, and it became a model for similar organizations. The organization's headquarters and storage facilities were located on 6th Street and Pitkin Avenue in Grand Junction. Although it was organized with the presumption that it would be a farmer's cooperative, it was a stock group with members receiving shares of stock. To join, a grower had to purchase stock in the company. Then, the company was supposed to sell the fruit from its members and pay them a percentage of the profits. Around 1908, the company went bankrupt and agreed to pay its members a fraction of the value of their stock. The company then reorganized under the control of three or four men, including: Henry Hottes, John Bridges, and Sam McMullin. According to oral history interviewees such as Eugene Frederick Rowley, Hottes, Bridges and McMullin grew rich from the company’s new organization. In 1920, the United Fruit Growers Association formed as a fairer alternative to the Grand Junction Fruit Growers.
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- Grand Junction Iron Foundry (Grand Junction, Colorado)
- An early Twentieth century iron foundry run by a Scottish immigrant named Mr. Weir and his two sons: Maury and Phil. On South 8th Street near the current Daily Sentinel building.
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- Grand Junction Junior Chamber of Commerce
- Also known as the Jaycees, this non-profit organization was offered to young men starting in 1920 to teach them business and leadership skills, as well as get involved in several government-related projects such as voting, conservation, and the construction of airport facilities (which led to the development of regular air mail service). Today, they're known as the United States Junior Chamber, which is a branch of the Junior Chamber International organization.
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- Grand Junction Lions Club (Grand Junction, Colorado)
- A local chapter of the international organization created by attorney Silmon Smith, M.N. Due, Bob Ross, and man named Jones in 1921. According to Lion Laird Smith, the club briefly disbanded when Walter Walker brought the Rotary Club to town. In 1922, the Grand Junction Lions Club reformed with Silmon Smith as president (Laird's father). According to Silmon Smith, because he and others had not been offered membership in the Rotary Club, he and other former Lions, “picked out about 20 of the leading young men in town and invited them to meet with us and we’d form a Lions Club. And they all accepted with the exception of one.” In a speech given shortly before his death in 1964, Silmon Smith described the first service projects performed by the Grand Junction Lions: "When we came across this word, ‘service’, that our district governor has mentioned, we didn’t know how to begin serving. It was a new deal. And we happened to think of this little, nice, little spot up on Kannah Creek, just below the intake where there were vines and shrubs and a little poison ivy and spiders and what-have-you. We decided to go up there and clean that up. And we were full of vim and vigor and we divided ourselves up into teams – you and I would go and we’d clean this place up and we’d get all through and then we’d go clean up the place that you got through cleaning up and the other one… and by the time we got that cleaned up, we had the place completely ruined. Lion Leland Schmidt’s father was one of the most avid cleaners. People up at Kannah Creek saw that we were all hot and bothered to do something and they began to figure out “What do we want?” They decided that they wanted a bridge, so they came down and said, “Will you, please, build us a bridge?” So we put the heat on the county commissioners to build a bridge, which they did. Presently, somebody thought about a junior college. We started in to talk about a junior college. We were a little bit thrown off the gait for a while because some man – and I think he was a legislator from Colorado – told us that the Western State College up here at Gunnison… that darned cold place up there… could be better moved down to Grand Junction and instead of having a junior college, we’d have a four-year college. Some of the people swallowed that idea, and so we started to move Western State from Gunnison to Grand Junction. Do you know those people up there in Gunnison didn’t like that? And whether the Lion’s Club had any part in that, I don’t know, but this district did. At any rate, we didn’t move it down." The club conducts various activities, including the Lions Club Carnival, first organized in the 1940's. Before the Carnival, the Lions put on a Lions Follies at the Avalon Theater, with members dressing up in costume, pantomiming and dancing. They first met in the LaCourt Hotel, owned by William Buthorn. The first carnival was organized and promoted by B.M. Benge. It netted $300. The Lions Club used its carnival as a vehicle to fundraise for Grand Junction Junior College, for teacher salaries, the early school building, and even for scholarships. Members of the Lions Club, including Orlo Williams, went to neighboring towns and persuaded townspeople to sponsor scholarships in turn for a Lions Club contribution of matching funds. According to Al Look, the club funded many important projects over the years, including: Construction of a road from the Kannah Creek Reservoir, building the road to Land’s End, the early Mesa College, a playground at Lincoln Park, and the establishment of a dance club for high school students. The Lions also raised $90,000 to help start Two Rivers Plaza (now the Grand Junction Convention Center), and $90,000 to help build the Moss Performing Arts Center at Mesa College (now Colorado Mesa University).