People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- William Charles "Bill" Rump
- He was born in Colorado to Charles Albert “Charlie” Rump and Viola Anna (Steinbach) Rump. His father was a civil engineer and farmer. His mother was a homemaker. The 1910 US Census shows Charles and Viola living in Denver, Colorado, prior to the birth of William. William was born in Denver and spent some of his childhood in Louisiana before moving with his parents to Mesa County in October of 1919, when he was seven years old. The 1920 census shows the Rumps, including William’s older brother Jack, living in the Fisher area, where they farmed. As a child, he drove a spray wagon to combat coddling moths in the Redlands orchards. He attended the Redlands School. As part of a school project, he planted a tree on school grounds and named his Aristotle. He graduated from Grand Junction High School in 1929. He was the Student Body President, played football, and was involved in the G Club and J-R Club. He left Grand Junction in 1933 and was gone for several years before returning sometime after 1945. On November 23, 1935, he married Helen Burgess Gardner in Bexar, Texas. There, he was working as a district engineer for an oil company. The 1950 census shows them living in downtown Grand Junction with Helen, with William working as a lumberyard foreman. The 1953 Grand Junction City Directory lists him as a salesman for Independent Lumber. He owned and later sold a peach ranch near the Gunnison River. He died at the age of 94 and is buried in the Orchard Mesa Cemetery. *Photograph from 1929 Grand Junction High School yearbook
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- William Clarence Kurtz
- The millionaire and owner of lumber yards in Montrose and Grand Junction, Colorado, including the Independent Lumber Company, in the early to mid-Twentieth century. Along with Clyde Biggs, he purchased and first developed the land just east of 12th Street and south of Lincoln Park in what was known as the Lincoln Park Addition. He and his wife Edna located their home at 1259 Gunnison Avenue, across from the then Mesa County Fairgrounds (now Lincoln Park). According to William C. Rump, he was also one of the builders of the Grand Junction Country Club in the Redlands (which became the Redlands Community Center).
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- William Claybaugh
- Early Palisade, Colorado doctor. Member of the Mesa County Medical Society.
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- William David Jones
- He was born in New York and grew up on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. He came to Grand Junction, Colorado in 1883, not long after the town’s founding. He was sixteen. He became a locomotive engineer and later a railroad inspector.
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- William Davidson Sr.
- Early resident of Crested Butte, Colorado. Died in the Jokerville Mine Explosion on January 24, 1884.
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- William E. "Ben" Smith
- He was born in Illinois to William H. Smith and Sarah (Jones) Smith in Illinois. His father was a freighter. His mother was a homemaker. The US Census shows that the family was living in Saguache, Colorado by 1880, when William was three. He married Jessie Stanton in Collbran, Colorado in 1909. By 1910, they were living in Grand Junction, where the census lists his occupation as cowboy. In 1920, he lived with his family in Riverton, Wyoming, where he was a teamster. He later owned an automotive garage in Loma, Colorado in the 1920’s and 30’s. The garage opened in 1924. Around that time, he was helping to drill an oil well near Loma and had his leg cut off in an accident. He also served as the substitute bus driver for his son-in-law, Wilbur Downey.