People

: Albert "Abe" William Karp; He was born in Nebraska to William Karp, a farmer, and Rosa (Lehn) Karp, a homemaker. Just one year after Albert’s birth, the 1910 US Census shows the family had moved to Delta, Colorado. The family moved again to Mesa, Colorado some time before 1920. Albert went to school in Grand Junction and Fruita, but didn’t complete high school, as he liked working on the farm. In 1926, Albert was pulling stumps on a ranch (owned by Governor Oliver Henry Nelson Shoup) using dynamite when an explosion caused him to go blind, lose his left hand, and part of his right hand. He spent six weeks in the hospital and quickly became addicted to the drugs given to him to numb the pain. He became an alcoholic for many years after that. He was unable to go to the Colorado Springs School for the Blind on account of him not having hands and being unable to feed and dress himself. He got his first guide dog in 1936. He worked running the concession desk for the Grand Junction Post Office for over seventeen years. He went on to get his GED and took college courses in Psychology and Sociology. He volunteered for Alcoholics Anonymous and many other honorable causes throughout the rest of his life.

: Albert Alstatt; He grew up in Kansas and moved to the New Liberty area of Mesa County, Colorado with his wife, Anna (Nilsson) Alstatt, where they homesteaded. According to New Liberty resident Marjorie (Morrow) Thomas, her father, John Burnell Morrow, traveled on the same train as Albert Alstatt, and the two ended up choosing homesteads side-by-side.

: Albert Calunga; He was a migrant worker who lived in La Colonia (in what is now Las Colonias). His children attended the Emerson School. He and his wife Lupe became the head bakers of Holsum Bread. They had a daughter named Hope.

: Albert Courtney Rood; He was born in Hayden, Arizona and moved to Grand Junction by 1919, when he was five years old. He grew up in the Third Fruitridge area north of town, and worked in the orchards killing codling moths and building boxes as a child. He attended the Lowell School for third to sixth grades and then graduated from Grand Junction High School. In high school, he was the president of the Boys’ League and a member of the National Honor Society. He studied at Mesa College, earned his BA and, eventually, an MD at the University of Colorado (His MD was received in 1940). As an undergraduate, he was an assistant in Grand Junction’s Federal Bureau of Entomology laboratory for five years. He later worked as a physician and surgeon. He married Jaqueline Wallace, a homemaker, and they had three children: Albert, Don William, and Jason David Rood.

: Albert E. Hanks; Albert Edmund Hanks, born November 9, 1847 and died August 15, 1898. Hanks owned a lumber business on the corner of D and 1st Streets in Salida, Colorado.

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