Colorado and other western states and the people doing their survey discovered this area. The settlers came in 1881. The ute indians had been living in the grand valley for over 500 years prior to that. 1881 they discovered with a little bit of water and some irrigation and development this area could be a successful town. Agriculture was definitely important. Once they were able to get theoretician flowing to the entire valley agriculture became a very important part of the town. Like i said my name was definitely important. Once they got the rover to come through town when they develop that part of the region that definitely contributed to it. Even right now i 70 is one of the main corridors between east coast and the east coast and going to california charged chances are they are taking i 70 subgrantor option in the grand valley plays an important transportation or role. This book is probably my eighth book. One of my favorite hooks on local history called little book to Cliff Railway about wt governor came to the grand valley in 1992. He was an entrepreneur from the east coast. He had discovered before you got there they had discovered coal and a lot of coal veins so the book was marked the north of Grand Junction. They determined that the cole was there. In 1890 he opens the town of Grand Junction was still very new. It was still developing and finding its footing. He built, he opened a mind up there. He also the grand valley mine was closed. It interesting thing about this book is it allows you to read up on this period and you can go and find that goes down in that mine. What was really interesting is that they open the mind, they had a railway called the little Cliff Railway that transported cold from the minds to first read and Grand Junction. Theres apps actually a map showing the route that row row took. Its interesting because you can see the railroad went right through the airport. The settlement wasnt just for mining. They would also have activities, have picnics up there. These were some women who had gone up there to pick wildflowers. So wt carpenter like i said he was a very openminded entrepreneur and so he knew that in order for his town to be successful he would have to use that mining but also expand his operation. For a while there there was kind of a debate as to whether Grand Junction or carpenter would take off and obviously right now we know carpenter is a ghost town. Grand junction is a thriving city. Its obvious it was a more successful town but back then like i mention Grand Junction still kind of getting its footing and they didnt know whether carpenter would overtake it or not. I think Grand Junction succeeded probably a multitude of reasons. The irrigation water. There was a spring above carpenter, way up above in the canyon above the minds. In carpenter they did have water but it wasnt like having a river going through town. Also the railroad. The railways that took the call from the mind down to Grand Junction didnt have that regional service. The town of carpenter and the operations were definitely an interesting point in the towns history because a lot of the people who lived in Grand Junction would depend on that coalmining there. The next book that im going to talk about is called the grand heritage by dave fishel. Dave is an expert on local history. If someone was asked, if someone were to ask me what the quintessential Grand Junction history book was i would say is the grand heritage. Thereve been a lot of great looks but this is one of the most wellknown and fascinating books. You know he did a great job of starting at the beginning starting at the point when the settlers discovered the town in the area that the town had become. He breaks it down stepbystep talking about george crawford, laying out the original layout of the town and that it goes from 1880s all the way to today but there are a lot of fascinating pictures