History Written to Conclusion
Ken Johnson’s new book, Publishers: Walter and Preston Walker, The Daily Sentinel, is a self-published memoir and scrapbook masquerading as a history book.…
Category: Racist and Reactionaries
Quincy’s, Paragon, and Fear: LGBTQ+ Folx Make a Stand and Home Here
In 1979, Paul Freitas re-opened Quincy’s Bar and Grill as Grand Junction, and by default the Western Slopes first ‘gay bar.’ But Quincy’s…
Mesa State College Opens the Closet Door, 1976-1977
In November 1976, the Mesa State Criterion broke the long silence, running a series of articles about Grand Junction’s ‘gay community.’ The articles…
The Closet: LGBTQ+ folx in the Grand Valley, 1881-1976
The Ute people have called this region home since time beyond memory. Like most native cultures, the Utes held space for the gender…
To Feed the Flies: The Anti-War Article Brought Down the Last Socialist Newspaper in the Grand Valley
This anti-WWI article in the local socialist paper was not popular by the new Super-Patriots at the time. The Sentinel, the Post-Master, and…
The Mayor; The Sentinel, and the Socialist Free Speech Fight of 1905
Walter Walker was not the first editor of the Daily Sentinel to wage an all-out war on the Socialist parties in early 20th…
Elizabeth Taylor’s Legacy of Resilience
The story of the West is far more pigmented and more feminine than Hollywood or the ‘guns and outlaws’ histories will every portray.…
Vigilantes, Sugar Beets, and ‘Evacuees’: the Japanese Settlement of the Grand Valley, a story of Both Racism and Refuge
The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in December of 1941, led directly to one of the darkest moments in American history,…
Why “A People’s History of the Grand Valley”
This project really began in 2006, I was writing for the short live radical paper, “The Red Pill.” Grand Junction was celebrating its…