Mesa County Pest House, Mesa County, Colorado County Farm 1883 Grand Junction Mesa Colorado USA https://www.google.com/maps/place/Redlands,+CO/@39.0873868,-108.6883538,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x874702f1e0939f4d:0x72c3024 Google Map link for the Redlands, Grand Junction, Colorado Later known as the County Farm, it was a two story house on the Redlands where patients with smallpox and other infectious diseases were quarantined during the early 1900’s, and possibly earlier. It was located a quarter-mile west of the then Main Street bridge (now a bridge extends from Grand Avenue onto Broadway) on a ridge near the Redlands Power Canal, just east of Redlands Road. The first Mesa County Hospital seems to have been in the same location, near what is now known as Heather Ridge, and was operated by Mesa County between 1883 and 1886. A photograph belonging to the Redlands Water & Power Company shows the hospital as a two story building just beyond the canal. Eyewitness accounts also mention the Pest House as a multi-story building. It is probable that sometime after the Mesa County Hospital building ceased operating as a hospital, it became the Pest House. According to local historian David Sundal, the building looked like a haunted house. When someone with smallpox, scarlet fever, or another virulent disease was placed there, a member of their family would come to care for them. According to oral history interviewee John Collier, who grew up near the Pest House, the building had a section called the "Pet House," and it was considered horrible to be a resident there. It's possible that Pet House was a reference to a mental ward maintained at the Pest House. With the growth of vaccinations and the advent of cleaner water, there was apparently little need for a Pest House. During the Great Depression or before, the land was ceded from Mesa County to the City of Grand Junction and became the Poor Farm. *Some information for this article was taken from the book “Among the Eagles: A History of the Redlands” by Matt Atkins, and from the Daily Sentinel article “Historical records shed little light on Pest House” by Bob Silbernagel (29 October 1994, p. 1B). *Above photograph courtesy of the Redlands Water and Power Company, showing the hospital just south of the Redlands Canal. yes yes Mesa County HospitalRed Mesa HospitalRed Mesa Quarantine Hospital