People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
-
- William "Billy" Fitzpatrick
- He was a sheep rancher who owned a large outfit in the Montrose and Mesa Counties in the first half of the Twentieth century. He was the largest sheep operator in Western Colorado. He died in Leadville of pneumonia sometime in the mid-1900s. His estate, including 36,000 sheep and considerable debt, was administered by William Weiser, and took six years to clear up satisfactorily.
-
- William "Billy" Weiser
- He was born in Lyons Station, Pennsylvania. His father died young of tuberculosis, putting a great strain on the rather large family he left behind. At the age of thirteen, William was sent to be reared by his uncle, William Moyer, in Grand Junction, Colorado. He attended public school in Grand Junction through high school and went on to Colorado College and received his degree in 1898 (he was a classmate of Grover Rice). He graduated from Stanford’s Law School in 1902 with a license to practice law in the state of California. He returned to Grand Junction and entered into a partnership with Mr. Wheeler, an older lawyer in the city. In 1914, he was elected DA in Mesa County. He served in the Colorado legislature for a time. He was president of the Grand Valley National Bank for seventeen years. After the bank’s closure in 1933, he opened his own law office on Fifth and Main Streets with Gene Mast as a partner. He was the President of the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce in the 1920's and brought Wyatt M. Wood from Texas to assume the Manager position for the Chamber. He was an expert on water law in his private practice and with William Fry of the Grand Valley Drainage District, he was instrumental in including all of Mesa County's municipalities under the District's umbrella, allowing for their taxation and District funding. For a time during the 1930's, he quit practicing law and took up sheep ranching in order to settle debts in the estate of Billy Fitzpatrick, a sheep rancher who had died suddenly. In 1922, he married Edith Florine Turner and adopted her son, Albert, from a former husband. With Edith and Albert, he was an early settler of the Third Fruitridge area in Pomona. He served as president of the Rotary Club, was a Mason, Odd Fellow, and Elk’s Lodge member. He was on the state highway board for many years, and enjoyed traveling with his family around the state, examining highways for needed improvements.
-
- William "Bruce" Howard
- He moved with his family from Kansas to Fruita, Colorado during the Dust Bowl. When they moved in 1936, it had not rained in their part of Kansas for seven years. He and his wife, Nellie Howard, settled on Mesa Street in the south part of Fruita, Colorado. William farmed several acres of land and soon became one of the first to bring Black Angus cattle to the Grand Valley. He also helped 4-H clubs and the Mormon Church in Utah start their own herds of Black Angus. William picked peaches for the deBlaquiere family and supervised their peach orchard on the Redlands for ten years. He worked a job on the side hanging wallpaper with the assistance of his wife.
-
- William "Grandpa" Bird
- Note: Referred to, in error, as William Byrd in the article, "Time Writes All History"
-
- William "W.A." Rice
- With his brother Phidelah "P.A." Rice, he established Mesa County's first lumber mill, located by Enoch Lake on Pinon Mesa, in 1883. He later lived in the Pomona area, on or near Third Fruitridge. There, he farmed. His wife was Mary E. (Gover) Rice.
-
- William "Will" Nessler
- ): He was born in Lancaster, New York to Fred Nessler and Elizabeth (Bach) Nessler. His father was a wagonmaker. His mother was a homemaker. His parents are identified by US Census records as being immigrants from Germany (father) and France (mother). Fred Nessler died in 1868, when William was about 10 years old. The 1870 Census shows a 12-year-old Will and his mother being supported by Will’s older brother Fred Jr., who worked as a wagonmaker. Will had moved to Iowa by 1883, and Iowa marriage records show that he married Ella Moore, a fellow New Yorker, in Buena Vista County on June 28th of that year. In 1900 they lived in Sioux Rapids with their daughter Eva Nessler, with Fred working as a harness maker. Along with many other Iowans, they moved to Mesa County, Colorado in 1906 and settled in Palisade, where they farmed fruit.
-
- William "Will" Watts
- He was born in Washington County, Arkansas to Doctor Calvin Watts and an unknown mother. His father moved with he and his siblings to Colorado in 1897, when he was nine years old. According to Will, his father took him away from his mother in Arkansas when he was five years old. He grew up instead with Nancy Watts, his step-mother, as a parent. The family lived in Delta until 1899. The 1900 census shows them living in Telluride, when Will was twelve years old. There, his father worked as a laborer. His father hired him out for work caring for 72 milk cows on Hastings Mesa, outside of Telluride, when he was 12. Watts worked there for six months and came home. Watts says that he ran away from home at the age of thirteen, telling his father he was going to Telluride. He missed the train, so instead walked with a sixteen year old to Colorow (Olathe), where he took job caring for milk cows, helping to drive them up to Hastings Mesa. There, he took a job in Mrs. Cushman’s boarding house. His father tried to get him to come home, but he worked instead on a milk farm for Frank Brown and also did work for Boyd Collins, doing things like operating a threshing machine and cutting logs. Will did not see his father again for 24 years. When he was fired at the age of sixteen for refusing to work on the Sabbath, he went to visit his mother in Rocky Ford, Arkansas. He married Edith Jane Caddy on July 24, 1903. They had two children. The 1910 census shows them living in Montrose County, where they farmed. By 1920, they had moved to East Telluride, where he worked as a gold miner and later in a graveyard. By 1940, they had returned to Montrose County, where Will worked as a trucker, hauling coal from Cedaredge to Montrose. He also worked in the firehouse for twenty-three months. In 1950, both he and Edith worked together in the grocery business in the town of Orchard. He died in Montrose at the age of ninety-seven, just eighteen days after his wife passed away.
-
- William "Willi" Edmondson
- He was a long-time professor at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado. He joined the faculty there in 1960, and was still teaching into at least the 1980’s. He was known for his intriguing lectures, and was one of the most popular teachers on the campus. He was born in Iowa and received his BA degree from Augustana College, his MA from Vanderbilt University, and his doctoral degree from Claremont Graduate University.