People

: William Maroney; Early resident of Crested Butte, Colorado. Died in the Jokerville Mine Explosion on January 24, 1884.

: William Martinez

: William McCabe

: William McCowatt; Early resident of Crested Butte, Colorado. Died in the Jokerville Mine Explosion on January 24, 1884.

: William McGuire; In October 1980, he was a guest lecturer of the Museums of Western Colorado on the history of the Uintah Railway and the Grand Junction and Grand River Valley Railway Company (Interurban).

: William McHarg "Bill" Ela; He was born to Wendell Dennett Ela and Lucy Brainerd (Ferril) Ela in Grand Junction, Colorado. His father was a bank vice president and the son of Mesa County pioneer Wendell Phillips Ela, early Pinon Mesa rancher and Grand Junction mayor. His mother was a homemaker, the sister of Colorado poet William Hornsby Ferril, a member of the Grand Junction School Board and Colorado State School Board, and active in many other community organizations. His siblings included D. Keith Ela, Thomas Ela, Wendell P. Ela, and Charles Ela. He attended the Emerson School in grades 1-4, the Lowell School in grades 5-6, Grand Junction Junior High School, and then Grand Junction High School. While in high school he participated in band, Ski Club, Home Room Council, and National Honor Society. US Census records show that his family lived at 1006 E. Main Street while he was growing up. He and childhood friends Bob Johnson and Alfred Thomas "Al" Look Jr. were known as the Three Musketeers. The three boys once captured a monkey, Betty, that had escaped from the Lincoln Park Zoo. He attended Mesa College 1941-42, University of Colorado at Boulder 1942-43, University of New Mexico 1943-44, and three months at Cornell University in 1944. He served in the US Navy on destroyers in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from 1943 to 1946, and achieved the rank of lieutenant jr. After the war, he attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1949. He married Shirley Phillips in San Diego on October 3, 1946. Together, they returned to Grand Junction, where William began his sixteen-year career as an attorney at Adam Heckman Traylor and Ela. The 1950 Census shows them living at 1635 Elm Avenue. He served as a District Judge for the 21st District from 1965 to 1987, as the Chief Judge beginning in 1983, as a District Judge and Senior Judge from 1987-99, and then as a mediator and arbitrator. He and his wife had five children. They retired to Hotchkiss. He was the 1971 Grand Junction Lion’s Club Lion of the Year, the 1973 Mesa College Distinguished Alumnus, and the outstanding local president of the Colorado Jaycess in 1952. *Photograph from the 1938 GJHS yearbook.