People

: William Henry Salter Penberthy; He was born in Wisconsin to immigrants from England. He moved with his wife and family to Grand Junction, Colorado in 1902. He worked as a carpenter and built many homes in Grand Junction, including the family home at 516 Chipeta Avenue.

: William Howard Taft; President of the United States of America. He visited Grand Junction and the Western Slope in September of 1909 in order to celebrate the opening of the Gunnison-Uncompahgre Tunnel water project. While here, he also attended the Palisade Peach Festival, where he crowned the Peach Queen, Agnes Swisher.

: William Innis; According to author Ruth Moss, Innis was one of the first sheriffs of Mesa County (after the county split from Gunnison County). In 1885, he captured two fugitives who had attacked jailer Harvey Calvin Bucklin and escaped from the Grand Junction Jail. Innis and two deputies tracked the fugitives to Pinon Mesa and captured them there (Mesa County Historical Society newsletter, May-June 1983).

: William J. "Bill" Callahan; A mortician and a volunteer with the Mesa County Oral History Project. He was born in Colorado to Thomas F. Callahan and Josephine “Josie” (Hurley) Callahan, the children of Irish immigrants. The 1910 US Census shows the family living in Teller County when Bill was two years old. His father was working as a plumber with his own business and his mother was a homemaker. The family moved to Grand Junction later that year, where Thomas and a partner took over the Griffins and Stowe Mortuary and renamed it the Younker-Callahan Funeral Home (now known as Callahan-Edfast). The 1920 Census shows the family living at 620 Chipeta Avenue. Bill attended Grand Junction High School, where he was a member of the Rhetorical Club and the Science Club. He then went to Mesa College from 1927-28 and was a member of the Owl Club. He married Genevieve Gamble in Montana on October 21, 1936. The 1940 Census shows them living with their daughter in Grand Junction, where Bill worked in the Callahan funeral business as a mortician. By 1950, he was the funeral home’s director. According to Pat LeMaster in her lecture about the history of St. Mary's Hospital, he was also associated with the ambulance service there. He died and is buried in Grand Junction. *Photo from 1926 Grand Junction High School yearbook

: William J. "W.J." Pray; He was born in Iowa. According to his interview, he came to Collbran as a cattle farmer in 1916, running two-three hundred cattle on the Grand Mesa with the Triangle-Slash brand. U.S. Census records show him living in Wyoming in 1920.

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