People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- George "The Skipper" Knox
- George Washington Knox, also known as “The Skipper,” was born on 22 February 1903 in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in Oklahoma City where his father was the city’s street car electrical engineer. Knox attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison. On 21 April 1935, Knox married Ella Mae McWhorter in Oklahoma City. Two sons were born to this union: George Knox Jr. and Allen Knox. During World War II, George Knox worked for Douglas Aircraft as a labor relations representative. In 1952, the Knox family moved to Colorado Springs and then to Cascade, Colorado. In 1965, the family relocated to Vail where Knox and son, George Knox Jr. started a cabinet building business. Initially a one-man show, George Knox established Vail’s first newspaper, The Vail Trail on 15 October 1965. Knox served as reporter, writer, ad salesman, bookkeeper, editor and publisher, in addition to creating page lay-outs. Ella Knox wrote a column entitled “Green Thumb Ella.” By 1969, son Allen Knox joined the operation and took over the helm in 1975. The Vail Trail ran between 1965 and 2008. Knox also inaugurated The Eagle Eye, a sister publication that briefly ran in Eagle. At the time of his death on 7 April 1975, George and Ella Knox were married thirty-nine years. Remarkably, George Knox found time to enjoy golf, family and friends in the midst of his newspaper and entrepreneurial career.
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- George A. Corn
- He was born in Colorado to Jesse Corn and Sarah Alice (Cheeley) Corn. His father was a farmer and his mother was a homemaker. The 1880 US Census shows the family living in Fremont, Colorado, with George, at eight years old, the second oldest of six children. According to Marie (Corn) Tipping, the family settled near Olathe. The 1885 Colorado State Census shows the family living in Montrose County, when George was fourteen years old. The 1900 census shows him working as a laborer in a sawmill in Chromo, just north of the New Mexican border. He married Sarah Duckett on February 8, 1905 in Grand Junction. They farmed on Roan Creek in Garfield County from 1910 to 1920. The census shows them living at 604 Grand Avenue in Grand Junction by 1920, with George listed as a stockman, on Bonita Valley Road in Mesa County in 1930, with George operating a sheep ranch, in Fruitvale in 1940, with George farming, and on Canon Avenue on Orchard Mesa in 1950, where George was retired. According to Marie Corn, he was a foreman for the S Cross Ranch on Pinon Mesa. He was also, reportedly, the first person to drive a car to Pinon Mesa via the Serpents Trail. He died at the age of ninety-one and is buried in the Orchard Mesa Cemetery.
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- George A. Nisbet
- He was born to Robert Nisbet and Charlotta R. “Lotta” (Homan) Nisbet in Nebraska. His father was a farmer and his mother a homemaker. His father died in 1903, the year after George’s birth. Nebraska marriage records show that Lotta remarried to Charles Mahoney, a lumber yard manager, in 1906. By 1920, census records show that George was a boarder with J.H. and Carrie Russell in Loup Ferry, Nebraska. There, George worked as a farm hand. He had arrived in Palisade, Colorado by at least November 5, 1923, the date of his marriage to Rena Mae Smith. He was the superintendent of the local water board.
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- George A. Woolsey Jr.
- A local historian, familiar with the history of the Far East Restaurant and the Ray Quan family. He gave a lecture on the history of the Far East, Ray Quan, and the Quan family at a Mesa County Historical Society event in 1984.
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- George Abshier
- His alias, by which he was known in Grand Junction, Colorado, was Bill Messick. He was a local bootlegger and the landlord of a boarding house just east of 2nd Street and Rood Avenue. With the Fleagle Gang, he took part in bank robberies around the West, including the Lamar Bank Robbery, which was planned in Grand Junction. He was captured a year or so after the robbery by Mesa County Sheriff Charles Lumley.
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- George Addison Crawford
- Western Slope pioneer, and the founder of Grand Junction and Delta, Colorado. According to the Kansas Historical Society, Crawford was born to George and Elizabeth Crawford in Pennsylvania in 1827. Crawford’s father was a district judge, a farmer, and a mill owner. Crawford was sent home from college due to poor health, but eventually Jefferson College at the head of his class in rhetoric, oratory, and Latin. He taught school in Kentucky and Wisconsin before returning to Pennsylvania to study law in 1848. At this time, he became the publisher of the Clinton Democrat. By 1857, he was involved with railroad interests and came west, where he took part in speculation on American Indian lands in order to pave the way for the railroad's expansion. He helped create the Fort Scott Town Company in Kansas, subsequently serving as the company's president. Crawford was vocal in his criticism of the nativist Know Nothing party, voiced opposition to slavery, and opposed prejudice against Catholics and immigrants. He ran for governor many times. He won the governorship of Kansas in 1860, but the election was declared illegal in 1861. Crawford served as the commissioner of immigration under the Kansas governor. He also founded the Fort Scott Daily Monitor newspaper and helped organize the Kansas Historical Society. Crawford owned a flour mill as part of his business ventures. When this building burned, it put him severely in debt. With the forced removal of the Utes from Western Colorado in 1881, he moved to the Grand Valley, and was one of the founders of Grand Junction. He died of Tuberculosis in 1891 and is buried on Reservoir Hill in the Orchard Mesa Cemetery. *Sources: Kansas Historical Society: Kansapedia (online). George A. Crawford Papers at the Wichita State University Special Collections & University Archives (online)