People

: Walter Walker; He was the publisher of The Daily Sentinel and a leading Democrat in Grand Junction, Colorado. He became the state Democratic Party chairman in the 1920's. He was behind the deal of William Moyer to build a community swimming pool in Lincoln Park, and the deal that brought in the Fruit Grower’s Association. He also backed the Goodwill and Salvation Army charities. He was an organizer of the campaign to build the Avalon Theater and brought acts to the theater and to Lincoln Park via promotion. Before losing the 1932 election, he briefly served in a U.S. Senate seat as an appointee. After forming the Veteran's Hospital Committee, he arranged for the establishment of a Veteran's Administration Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado with the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce's help. He also championed Mesa College and the founding of an airport in Grand Junction (named Walker Field in his honor). According to interviewee Robert Eugene Grant, Walker was in charge of the editorial page in The Daily Sentinel and had a high interest in the political aspects of the paper. Gilbert Baylis, a friend of Walker's son Preston, described Walter Walker as kind but reserved. In his 1972 oral history interview, former Daily Sentinel employee Clemont "Clem" Goettelman, who worked under Walker, confirms that Walker was briefly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but dropped out and turned against them. William H. "Bill" Nelson, another former Sentinel employee quotes his father and avowed Klan member Clarence Herbert Nelson as saying, "Mr. Walker was a member of the Klan" (Interview with William H. "Bill" Nelson: Walter Walker Series, 1972). In the 1961 article "The Walkers of Grand Junction," historian Alan Pritchard cites surviving Klan members in town who confirm that Walter Walker was an early Klan member: "The Klan had been secretively active on the Western Slope for some time before the crosses flamed above the Grand Valley. They had quietly recruited members from all walks of life and there were some ex-Klansman still living in 1961 who maintained that Walter Walker, himself, was an early enlistee. In the early days of the Klan many reputable men joined the invisible empire for reasons that, in retrospect, seem entirely devoid of logic. Almost every businessman on Main Street had a hooded nightshirt in the closet" (1961 Brand Book, "The Walkers of Grand Junction," p. 217-218). According to Mesa County Oral History Project interviewee Al Look, interviewed in 1972, not only was Walter Walker a member of the Klan, but he actually contacted Klan directors on the Eastern Slope and arranged to bring a Klan chapter to Grand Junction. Furthermore, said Look, Walker wanted to be named the Kleagle of the local Klan, and only turned against the Klan when he was unable to attain this position. Robert Alan Goldberg, author of the book Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado, used internal Klan documents to verify information about Colorado's Klan organizations. He asserts that Walker functioned as the Grand Junction Klan's leader, at least for a time. However, he also says that Walker flouted many of the group's principals: he served alcohol at Klan meetings, even though the Klan supported Prohibition. He also was disinclined to persecute Catholics. Another MCOHP interview says that Walker's support for Catholic Al Smith for president in 1928 brought on an attack on the street by Klan member Charlie Thomas. Yet the Klan's power had waned three years prior to this, and others maintain that Thomas accosted Walker over columns in the Sentinel that directly attacked the Klan. *Above photo a public domain image from the U.S. Senate Historical Office.

: Walter Whitecotton

: Walter Woodward

: Wanda E. Breckler; An educator and administrator who for several years took teachers on a summer tour of Colorado’s Western Slope. During their tours, they went to the Colorado National Monument, where Al Look talked to the teachers about the geology and history of the area. With her husband, she was a native Iowan, but versed in Colorado history.