People

: Wilbur Eugene Downey; He was born to David Downey and Bertha Cassinda (Suedekum) Downey in Stafford, Kansas. His father owned a pool hall and farmed. His mother was a homemaker. The family arrived in Loma, Colorado in 1919. David Downey bought the pool hall there and ran it for four years before the family moved to a farm on 13 Road. Wilbur attended grade school in Kansas and Loma, and finished the 8th grade. By 1930 the family was living in Fruita, where the US Census lists David Downey as a farmer. Wilbur farmed and worked as a truck driver. He married Mildred M. Smith of Utah on July 31, 1929. During the 1960’s, they ran the Loma Store, a general store they owned in Loma.

: Wilbur J. "Bill" Raber; His father was a German immigrant and his mother was from Nebraska. He was born in South Dakota, and his family moved shorty after to Leadville, Colorado, where his father ran a butcher shop. His family came to Mesa County in 1907 and settled in Kannah Creek. He attended the Purdy Mesa School through the 10th grade. He was a child during World War I and experienced discrimination from a teacher and classmates because his father was from Germany. Wilbur became a cattle rancher and ran the same operation his father had started in 1907, continuing it up until 1968. He also helped build reservoirs on the Grand Mesa and helped put land in cultivation along upper Kannah Creek and Purdy Mesa.

: Will Cleo Minor; A longtime Fruita resident from the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth century. According to Marjorie (Raber) Likes, the Minor family came to Fruita from Eastern Colorado when he was about nine years old. According to Dorothy (Raber) Beard, he worked as goat herder for his father and then for the Raber family. He attended to the lambing at night. He didn’t complete formal schooling but was an accomplished writer and photographer. He also collected butterflies and discovered a rare type of butterfly at Black Ridge on the Colorado National Monument. Subsequently, the butterfly was named after him: Papilio Indra Minori. He wrote articles about nature and sheep ranching for the Daily Sentinel. In 1915, he wrote the book Footprints in the Trail, which was reprinted several times.

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