Colorado Mesa University (first location), Grand Junction, Colorado 1925 1937 Rood Avenue and Fifth Street Grand Junction Mesa Colorado 81501 USA place:1619 Lowell School (first location), Grand Junction, Colorado According to oral history interviewee Gladys Gross, who attended Grand Junction Junior College during its third year of existence, the school was located at that time in the old Lowell School. The building had been condemned but was the only location available to the college at that time. Each room had its own stove, and only three or four classrooms in the building were utilized. Even so, the building stayed cold, and students would bundle up in coats during the winter. Oral history interviewee Richard Williams recounts that the college was helped by the Grand Junction Lions Club. The club's carnival raised money for teacher salaries in the early years, and for landscaping on the college's building. According to oral history interviewee and art teacher Cecilia Cardman, much of the early school’s student population came from rural areas of Western Colorado and Eastern Utah. Because the students had been relatively isolated, they were more susceptible to diseases such as smallpox. According to oral history interviewee, junior college teacher, and later vice president of Mesa College Mary Rait, the college moved to its present location at 12th Street and North Avenue in 1937, when it received a federal grant for the construction of Houston Hall. She described the move as necessary because, by 1937, the Lowell School had become overcrowded, and was dilapidated despite renovations made by the college. yes yes Grand Junction Junior College