Priscilla Walker, current Vice Chairman and Founding Chairman of the Palisade Historical Society (historicpalisade.org), tells the fascinating story of how she and a dedicated team of volunteers pulled off an enormous effort to quite literally save history in 2014 when they kept 111 years of issues of the Palisade Tribune from destruction.
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Welcome to the Postcards From Palisade Podcast. I’m Lisa McNamara. Palisade is most famous for its peaches, but there’s so much more happening in our little town. Join me as I chat with our community members to hear about how they are making Palisade a great place to live and visit.
Today I’m speaking with Priscilla Walker, current Vice Chairman and Founding Chairman of the Palisade Historical Society, about saving the Palisade Tribunes. Priscilla and a dedicated team of volunteers pulled off an enormous effort to quite literally save history in 2014 when they kept 111 years of issues of the Palisade Tribune from destruction.
The Palisade Tribune was the town’s newspaper of record from June 6, 1903 until March 13, 2014. It existed even before Palisade was incorporated as a town in April, 1904. Even today, eleven years after it ceased publishing, I still regularly hear people lamenting the loss of our local newspaper.
I knew, from attending the Historical Society’s monthly history talks, about the Historical Society’s current effort to digitize past issues of the Tribune. But I had no idea that this effort wouldn’t have existed without the 2014 work of a group of volunteers to rescue and preserve the physical copies of the newspaper.
I had to talk to Priscilla to learn more about this story. Join us today to hear all about how Priscilla discovered the papers were in danger, how a team of volunteers worked tirelessly to save them, putting in over 260 volunteer hours, and what their plan b was in case things didn’t go smoothly. And of course, we also take a few detours into the fascinating corners of Palisade history… all that and more on today’s Postcard from Palisade.
Priscilla: I’m glad you found the article because it needs updating.
Lisa: Okay, well, let me tell you how I found the article.
Priscilla: Perfect.
Lisa: Which is kind of a strange story, but, someone was asking me, okay, when did the Tribune cease printing? Do you know why? Things like that. So I really just did a search, and up pops this detailed history. And I’m reading it like, this is amazing. And again, you know, 2014. I think it was from?
Priscilla: March 2014. Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah, I thought, I wonder if people today maybe that moved here recently are aware of this history.
Priscilla: Oh, probably not. You know, you go through life and some things are meant to happen. And this, I think, is one of those. That we were just destined to save the newspapers. In the article, I talk about how, the angels stepped up to do the work. The first, of course, was Susan Lorenzen Cesario, whose parents had been the editors for 20 years. And so she knew the importance of it. And when it got shut down, I texted her and said, oh, the Sentinel shut down the Tribune. She called Jay Seaton on his private line on Sunday because of the connection that her parents had been the editor and made him promise to give, you know, so there’s the first angel. The Historical Society started in 2010. And so for the first four years, we had an article about what we were doing almost every week in the Tribune. And the last two years we had historic photos of the week. I mean, they really helped us get started. And then the Sentinel bought them in 2012 and shut it down in 2014. And, you know, we sure don’t get the coverage we did when the Tribune existed. But, you know, then it was, well, what’s going to happen to the papers? And as the article says, there was a lot of, you know, the town was going to put them in a truck and take them over to the school they just tore down. And they need to be in, I mean these are hundred year old papers.
Lisa: More than 100, right? Some of them?
Priscilla: Yeah. From 1903. June 1903. And so they need to be, to preserve them in boxes. And we got paper that wouldn’t destroy them from the printer, CPC Printing. And then Bob Sweeney still owned the Tribune building and so I traded him a lifetime membership in the Historical Society if we could have access to the building. Because the first thing was to sort them. I mean the pictures in the article show they were just on shelves and in pieces.
Lisa: It’s painful to see they are crumbling.
Priscilla: Oh yes, and you know we have to touch them with special gloves and stuff. And then it was negotiating with the Sentinel to get permission to have them. I mean because they owned the copyright for the Tribune. And finally it took three or four months but finally I got a gift agreement or something and he made changes and so we went from there. So we had access to the building starting in June. The Sentinel had published it the last two years. When they bought it they agreed to publish it for two years. March 13, 2014 was the last issue. So it took us until June to get an agreement to get in. Betsy had left her lunch bag from the Slice O’ Life. She had a dessert and it was still on the table and the plants had died and you know, I mean it was just as you can imagine. The Tribunes were on shelves in back. But the worst thing for paper is air and light. And so we needed to protect them. The first thing we needed to do was sort them. So we had a couple of wonderful volunteers, Nancy Morrison and Syble (Seckinger). And fortunately Syble had not grown up here because I’d still be sorting them because I go through and see something and read it. And so you know, here’s this place that was just walked out of. And they had also printed the Fruita Times. Bob had the Fruita Times for a couple of years or how many ever years. And there were just stacks of Fruita Times that had never been. So we took them down to the Fruita the historical society there. And then started the process. Another angel was the company that came and shredded the payroll records and all of the things that just should not be public. We were only doing the Tribunes and Nancy and Sybil got, well, I gave them a calendar for starting in 1903, you know, so they could see which issues were missing. And they wrote down all of the stuff. I mean, it was very laborious.
Lisa: Oh I bet!
Priscilla: So then we went in, and then it was, you know, get rid of the stuff that we shouldn’t save and concentrate on the Tribunes and sort them chronologically and keep track of, you know, which issues we had. And that took, well, they were still working on it in November. The Realtor put a note. We hadn’t been in there for a while because Sybil and Nancy had gotten tired, and they’d done pretty much all of it, and they hadn’t been in there. And the Realtor just left a notice said, it’s been sold. The closing is. And we didn’t have a month’s notice.
Lisa: Oh, my goodness.
Priscilla: Another angel was the woman at the Hollinger Metal Edge Company that worked over Veterans Day weekend to get us 63 boxes to put the papers in so they could be moved. And we did get a grant from CHRAB, the Colorado State (Historical) Records Advisory Board, for $5,000 to buy these metal, Hollinger Metal Edge boxes. And then, so I immediately call Susan. She and Lee came, and they were there a half hour before the boxes arrived, and, you know, put them in the boxes and label. I mean, they were very, wonderful. And another angel were Ralph and Nancy Eighmy, who had an extra house, and they agreed to store them. So we moved the shelves and they had them for five and a half years because we really didn’t have a place until we got the museum in 2021. We didn’t have another place to store them. And one of the tragedies so Susan and Lee came and they had a pickup, and they put them in and moved everything. And one of the interesting things, the entire 1960 issues are missing. Somebody borrowed them and never brought them back. And I had found one in my house. My mother saved it because my brother or I had done something, and so she saved it. So I had given it to Bob Dougherty, who was the editor, before Betsy. And, he just put it on an inbox or something. And so we were sorting through, we found it and so. And we got another one. So we have two 1960 issues. Just a lot of wonderful people that stepped up at the right time. And bless her heart, Susan Lorenzen fell and, you know, died from the fall less than two years later. I mean, if this had happened any other time, you know. So I think that’s the part where this was meant to be. So then we start, digitizing. And that’s really where the story on our website stops.
Lisa: Yeah, on the website it was saying, okay, so the next step is going to be to digitize. And I know so much has been done since then, since twelve years ago.
Priscilla: Oh yeah. I mean, we were working with the Mesa County Library and the museum. And John Lindstrom was going with the microfilm that the museum had. I mean, it was just, in fact, Susan, who had been a teacher at a middle school in Denver, had the. She phrased it exactly right. She said, this endeavor has no hope of simple. She’d teach her kids, you know, to quote Shakespeare and stuff. She was so eloquent and wonderful. But then we stumbled on the Colorado Virtual Library and you know, another angel. Leigh Jeremias and Regan Harper have been so helpful. We send what we can, the originals or the ones that are microfilmed, and they digitize them. And it’s not an inexpensive process. It’s like a buck and a quarter a page. And, you know, there were probably 5,500 issues printed because we’re missing 50 of the 1960 issues. We won’t have, you know, all of them. And most years we have most of them. But, you know, there are some holes. But we sort them, well, they’ve been in chronological order and we sort them and send them to Denver and they digitize them, or they, you know, they microfilm them and then they send that to, or they’ve been sending it to Israel, where they do optical character reader. So the machine looks at the original papers, some of which have creases and you know, whatever.
Lisa: Sure, little tears, probably, missing pieces.
Priscilla: And they come up with a serif screen of what they think it says. And that’s been another interesting process. Like Fruita is Pruita in the OCR. So I have gone in and corrected 150 Pruitas to make them Fruita. Because we have new statistics on that that she just gave us. In the last 90 days the Tribune had 5,500 views. I mean this is a newspaper that probably only had a few hundred, maybe 1,000 subscribers ever. In the last 12 months we’ve had 19,773 views of the Tribune. Now some of them are the same person. So in 90 days it was 5,500. And in that 90 day period the Tribune ranks 22nd out of 932 titles. there were 2,642 active users of the Tribune. One of the reasons I think it’s so popular is not just Palisade news, but it had Rapid Creek, it had Collbran, it had Fruita, it had East Orchard. There were columns around, even articles from the Sentinel or whatever, Grand Junction. National news, state news, national news, international news. In four or eight pages originally you could get a real sense of what was going on in the world. And that’s, you know, because some of the other papers were so long, you know, and they had to fill space. You’d have to read a lot to get the same amount that the Tribune would get in just a few words.
Lisa: Well, and what’s so cool about that is adding the searchability now with all of the digitized issues.
Priscilla: It’s huge.
Lisa: Like I can just go on there and put in any search term and it’s so easy to find information now.
Priscilla: Oh! And the Historical Society, we’re learning stuff, things that we thought like oral histories. I mean we love them. But it’s memory and some people’s memories are better than others. Lisa: For sure. Yeah. Priscilla: But yeah, the search capability and what we love, they’re on the Colorado Historic Newspaper and they’re also on Plains to Peaks, which is Wyoming. So if you have family or relatives or friends that were in Wyoming, you can also go there and they’ll give you Wyoming papers. And this is free. I mean, this is, you know, you have to sign up. And especially if you’re gonna correct, you sign in so they know what you’re, you know, what you’re up to. But to have this success because of, you know, it was meant to be that whoever directs this was.
Lisa: That’s so cool.
Priscilla: I also want to call out the wonderful, the Lorenzen family, especially John Lorenzen, has donated so much money to us so that we can get the Tribunes digitized. Altrusa. I mean, there’s some, some big, you know, Jeff Johnson, there are several people that have given substantial amounts because when it was four or eight pages, now it’s 20. The next batch is going to be up to 2003, probably early next year. We’re up to 95 now, so we’ll have eight more years in a little bit. And I just sorted the 2000 to 2003, and it took three hours because I had to stop and read the articles.
Lisa: Yeah, now, that’s not that long ago. That’s. Oh, that’s great. So you send the papers to Denver, they put them on microfilm that, that goes to Israel. What’s, what’s the word you said?
Priscilla: OCR. Yeah, they’re digitized in Denver. They couldn’t be digitized in Grand Junction because we don’t have a scanner that’s big enough because you can’t roll them because of the, especially the 1903 issues. And now we’re into the bound ones. And that’s really good because it’s every issue. And, starting in like 2002 or so, in the Tribune was the Palisade Bulldog newspaper from the high school. I don’t know, I wasn’t here, but we were gone for a few years and the teacher. Maybe they quit teaching journalism or something. But I think Bob Dougherty, who was the editor, took on the journalism class and then included it and distributed it with the Tribunes.
Lisa: That’s cool.
Priscilla: So we’ll have high school news coming up in this next batch when it’s printed.
Lisa: Very cool. So after they’re digitized in Denver, then the original papers get sent back here and they’re stored. So they’ll always be here stored for physical copies.
Priscilla: Yes. And we just got another thousand dollars from Questers for more boxes. Again, they’re, we have the paper and they’re in the right kind of boxes that, because cardboard destroys, ordinary cardboard destroys photos and stuff.
Lisa: I mean, this might sound like a dumb question.
Priscilla: No, there are no dumb questions.
Lisa: Why was it so important that you were able to get these papers? You and the group of volunteers. Why did you care and why was it so important to get these?
Priscilla: Well, we had been accessing issues when, you know, Betsy or whoever would let us. Because, again, people’s memories and the things that are available weren’t like the newspaper. I mean, this was when news journalism was. And, you know, there’s some errors. But, I just. I think it’s vital. I mean, and we’re the historical society and we were trying to communicate Palisade’s interesting and unique history because, okay, Grand Junction is bigger. And that’s the history you hear about. We’re overlooked. Even though I think our history is more interesting. I mean, we have been growing the best peaches in the world for the last hundred and thirty years. And that may be boring to some people, but the nuances and, you know, especially for people who think their food comes from the grocery store. We want people to understand the challenges that have been overcome and the agriculture expertise that is here and the inventions and all those kinds of things. And the newspaper only helps. We just got. Let’s see. Do you want me to talk about how we just researched something?
Lisa: Yeah, that would be lovely, because one of my questions was going to be, what sorts of things have you done with the digitized papers? And what are you hearing from people about how they’re using them? So. That would be great.
Priscilla: Oh, you know, if 19,000 people are looking at them, you know. Okay, so Cameo, we’ve sort of encompassed Clifton and Cameo, and, you know, we’re in touch with Plateau Valley and we’ve helped them and Fruita as well. The small historical society, smaller ones. But a guy contacted us. His family had run the Cameo Mercantile. And, you know, generations later, they have this fur coat, a sheepherder coat that was given as collateral. The guy is, this is in the 1920s. The guy can’t afford to pay what he was buying at the store, so he left the coat, never came back. So we’re researching the family and who in the family were at the Cameo Mercantile? And what about, what did they do? Because one of the family members, also became like the Assistant Attorney General of Colorado. And interestingly, we got one of our researchers, Dave Cecuga, found on Facebook a photo of the Palisade post office. And he’s figured out which ones are where. And this is one, we think that was like one of the plaza. It was on the west side of Main Street. And here’s a guy, and it’s Wakob, as opposed to Wachob. So, but it’s a photo that the museum in Grand Junction has. So we’ve corrected them, the spelling, and I was looking up Baker Steam Cars the other day. This was a file in my basement. And it was Palisade people. The Bowers worked there. And so I was researching it and found that, like $70,000 worth of investment in the Baker Steam Company was from Palisade people, my grandfather and others. I would never have known that if we hadn’t been able to research that in the, you know, in the Tribune.
Lisa: That’s very cool.
Priscilla: Genealogy. I think that’s huge. Another one that’s interesting is, addresses what property was where. Now, the problem is, like, my grandfather’s property was Ranch, west of Palisade.
Lisa: Yeah, right. Descriptions have changed.
Priscilla: We found in the phone book that the Wachob property was in Mount Lincoln. So that made the search a little bit easier. And sure enough, the Tribune articles talk about Mount Lincoln, which you know, is like 36 and 3/10 Road or 1/10 Road. Yeah. And G Road.
Lisa: It is kind, it’s. It’s addicting because you just keep chasing these threads and you keep finding something else and then going further and further.
Priscilla: And obituaries, I mean there’s huge things you learn from obituaries. You know, now they don’t mention the first wives’ kids or. But this you get, you know, there’s the parents and there’s the sibling. I mean they’re, they’re very well done. And for people researching their family, I mean that’s huge. I have to believe of the 19,000 views, I’ve got to believe a certain percentage is looking up family members.
Lisa: Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure that’s a critical source for that information that probably wouldn’t have existed anywhere else.
Priscilla: You know, the legal records don’t convey what the person was like, like the, the obituaries, you know, and the well-written ones. And so that’s, you know, clearly, motivation for historic newspapers.
Lisa: Absolutely. So what do you use today to preserve history? What and how do you decide is preserved today?
Priscilla: Interestingly, I mean we have files, and boxes, you know, when people share things with us. And then I have a spreadsheet. Big museums have databases that they pay for. And, you know, we’re into Excel and Word. So that’s really what we’re doing now is to digitize photos. All the photos we get, if people give them to us, want them back, we digitize them, or keep them in a photo acceptable storage space.
Lisa: So say, though, from 2014 onward, after the, after the Palisade Tribune ceased publishing. I guess. What do we use as that source now? That source of truth? Or is there one?
Priscilla: Other than our newsletter? I don’t know. I mean, that’s really, that’s a great question. Because we’re not. They’re trying to put a sign up on Food Town of who the town grouches were. And so they’ve come to us. And because the Sentinel didn’t. And the last one on the sign is 2014. The Sentinel didn’t publish. And I’ve even talked to Bob Silbernagel, who has access to information or, you know, because I think the Sentinels really do digitize their recent ones. They’re just not publicly available.
Lisa: Okay.
Priscilla: But he looked through their record and couldn’t come up with a name. So it’s, “do you remember who was the,” you know, and we’re down to only three or four years, but it’s been through our records. The chamber apparently didn’t keep them or, you know, I don’t know because they were in charge of the. But we’ve been a source and we’re able to provide part of it is. We’ve, been around. We started in 2010. So we’ve been around enough that people are, they think of us. Oh, I’ll check with the Historical Society. I mean, another source that I found is Facebook. The actually the Hugus Building. We were researching and we got a copy of a book from the Craig Museum about the J.W. Hugus and Company. And then we looked through the Tribunes and the Chamber files and then, the woman that had the restaurant where the Blue Pig is, for a while, her stuff that she posted is still on Facebook.
Lisa: Oh wow. She passed away quite a while ago, right?
Priscilla: And she passed away years ago. Yeah. And so I suppose, in some aspects, for some things. Although there again, it’s like oral histories. It’s what you remember or what you put down or. Or what you want people to know or not.
Lisa: Yeah. Polished version of history. I was wondering if you were going to say Facebook, because so much of our community, even community-building now today is on Facebook.
Priscilla: Social media. Yeah. Good or bad. In the information we got from Leigh at the Colorado Virtual Library. In the last 30 days, there have been 1,600 views of the Tribune. I mean it just, it’s exponentially. I mean, we envisioned that it would be a good resource for us, but that this many people are also appreciating it and you know, sending in memberships and donations and stuff and just and genealogy is huge. I’ve had people contact and I put cousins in touch with each other that haven’t talked for a while because they both contacted us and shared their, you know, their information.
Lisa: Wow. And so you’re like, I feel like you know this person, you’re related to this other person. Yeah, that’s so cool.
Priscilla: And correcting oral histories, I mean that’s, you know, another thing that, you know, that the Tribunes especially are good for.
Lisa: Yeah, I know there are the oral histories on the Historical Society website that are so interesting.
Priscilla: Aren’t they? Yeah. We opted to do summaries. We initially did videos and edited them. The woman who couldn’t remember when her husband died and she said, uh, well, we edited that out. And then I realized nobody has CD players anymore. And we got them back. The families, after they passed away, the families didn’t keep them. And so what we’ve been doing then are summaries, because they’re searchable. You don’t have to listen to an hour and a half to see when they talked about the United Fruit Growers. So we’ve done summaries, and we have, the newest one is Salvador Rivas, who is a migrant worker who came to Palisade. And then he managed Mike Martin’s orchards, the Cutter Orchards, for years. And, so he gave us his oral history. We sat down with him for hours, and it’s in English and Spanish. And he worked with Margaret Talbott at the Child and Migrant Center. And she sent him to the farm worker convention when Cesar Chavez was the speaker. And he has that poster. So that’s in. I mean, that’s the other thing about having, you know, the summaries is you can also put, you know, photos and things. And Salvador plays the guitar, and his daughter put the videos of his original recordings. So we can click to them. You know, they’re on YouTube, and you can click to them. And that’s on our website now. I am so excited.
Lisa: Okay. I haven’t. I haven’t looked at that one yet.
Priscilla: It’s brand new!
Lisa: I’m excited to go look at it. I gotta go check that out.
Priscilla: Yeah. Originally, I mean, one of our early volunteers, he thought we could do 10 oral histories a month.
Lisa: That’s a lot of work.
Priscilla: Well, and every person is different. I mean, we had a form, and some people would fill out the form. They’d know exactly what they wanted to say, and they’d say it. And then there were people that you’d ask questions and, you know, and then there were people who didn’t want to be recorded because they, you know, for whatever reason, they didn’t want to be recorded. And others have been reluctant to sit down with our. We have volunteers, and we’re just. We’re struggling. I mean, I have a list of. And typically they’ll die before we get them recorded. I mean, we’ve lost that a lot. But that maybe is another thing that we are trying to do without a newspaper is to record some of the more recent oral histories.
Lisa: That’s tough because like you said, everybody’s different. Some people might just give you a yes or no answer. Some people might talk for an hour.
Priscilla: For an hour. Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah. Interesting
Priscilla: Yeah, that’s been an interesting project. And it’s really slowed. I mean, we’ve gone years now without recording some that, but then we have some really exciting ones. You know, Barbara Bikki and other people that just are wonderful. And hers was, it was a recording that we summarized from a speech that she gave at a Christmas party, a family gathering, and they allowed us to tape it. And because she has spoken, I mean, she’s, you know, she emigrated from Hungary in 1956 and her cousin was a Baptist minister or uncle or aunt. And that’s why they came here. But it’s this incredible story about, you know, someone who emigrated to the United States and was fortunate enough to be able to figure out how to do that. This is the land of opportunity.
Lisa: Right? And then. Oh, that’s, okay. I’m gonna check that one out after this too.
Priscilla: Oh, yeah.
Lisa: So why is history important to you? Why did you get involved? Because you’re the founding, chairperson, chairman of the Palisade State Historical Society. So what made you start this up?
Priscilla: I guess, well, let’s see. It was a committee of the chamber, and I had been on the chamber board. And then we were gone for seven years and came back, and the chamber was Leif Johnson. He was the one that said, oh, gotta have a history. And it was interesting. Bill Floryancic said, well, you’ve started 10 years too late.
Lisa: That’s always true.
Priscilla: I think, you know, part of it is because we are so overlooked that, you know, we have this wonderful, unique story with all these interesting pioneers who could see what this place looked like with a little irrigation. And my family, my grandparents bought property in 1893 and built the house we live in in 1904. And we still. Kokopelli Orchards does our peaches now. But my family’s been growing peaches on that property for what is that? 130. How many ever years?
Lisa: Wow. That’s amazing.
Priscilla: And we don’t throw anything away. And so there was stuff in my basement that I was looking at to sort. And so I kind of got interested in that. And then Leif had this. And that’s how I met Harry Talbott. I mean, Harry was older than I am and his kids are younger. And so I never knew them growing up. And here they are, you know, this big fruit grower. So Harry and I got on this committee and started. And then one day, Leif just handed me the gavel. So that’s. That’s how I got to be.
Lisa: He said, you’re in charge now? That’s pretty funny.
Priscilla: So, yeah, that was my first idea, that maybe I’m the founding. And then we had some help from other organizations and got the bylaws and went through that formal process. And Bill Beckwith wrote the check for $400 so we could get incorporated as a nonprofit. And then it just. It was so obvious that it was so hard to find our history because it just wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t out there like it is with the Mesa County Historical Society, you know, and their oral history program and stuff that others were being. But the museum has been, you know, very helpful. And, at one point, there were, you know, because there was no museum in Palisade, people would give their stuff to the museum in Grand Junction, and a lot of it just got put in the basement. And so, we were fortunate enough, in one of the, you know, the times that when they came across stuff that said Palisade, they’d give it to me, like, photos and things. And I would scan them and give them back the digitized and original photos with the correct information. Because if you’re not here, it’s maybe harder. My favorite story is the Palisade library collection. My mother was on the Palisade library board, and they gave, in 1963, she did a history of Palisade and got people to give them photos and stuff. And there were 215 of them. And then the library board couldn’t keep them safe anymore, so they gave them to the museum. Well, the museum did the identification, and they had Colonel Bower, who’s one of our founders, as old man with pipe. Because Colonel Bower always smoked a pipe.
Lisa: Yeah. They had no idea who he was.
Priscilla: So I went through and gave them, you know, the corrected information and was thrilled that they would accept it.
Lisa: Yeah. What’s your favorite piece of Palisade history? Or what’s your favorite story about Palisade? If you have just one.
Priscilla: Oh! I have to pick? Boy, I don’t know. I’ve never thought to narrow it down. I mean, at the museum, we have the Aspinall Room, where Wayne Aspinall memorabilia and stuff is, because he was our congressman for 12 terms. And we have Cameo, which is, you know, is wonderful. And then the peach packing, and you know, we have videos of packing peaches and walking on stilts and then irrigation. And then we have the Palisade High School graduates, all the seniors in the 20th century. And the Tribunes, the original Tribunes and box labels. You know, it would have to be, peach growing is just so unique. And it doesn’t happen without our irrigation system. We have a, in fact, we surprised History Colorado with this. We have a display about the migrant cabins and the CCC camp. The civilian conservation camp where the German prisoners of war stayed in 1944 and they worked in the harvest in 44 and 45. History Colorado didn’t know that.
Lisa: Really!
Priscilla: I mean, boy, I don’t know. There’s so many unique little tidbits. The stilts and you know and packing peaches and just processing and how they. You know. Because growing peaches is different than other. I mean apples. They store them now with some sort of gas so that you don’t know if you have this year’s apples or last year’s because they’re just the same. Peaches. You put a stopwatch on. And if they don’t get somewhere at the right time. Just the perseverance maybe of people. The problem solving. The government puts up obstacles and they figure out how to work in spite of them. And just the working together, the common. I mean, I just think that’s, you know, something that is unique. And the Tribune communicates.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. That would. I mean there had to be a very special type to look at this valley, see what could happen here and then work together to make it happen.
Priscilla: Envision. Because the Ute Indians were here. But it was desert except for the river. And we’ve heard that they even avoided it because they thought it was cursed because nothing grew. And yet the settlers were like, a little bit of irrigation. The Mormons had done that in Utah, because our first orchards were by Whitewater and Rapid Creek. So they could divert the water into the orchards and you know, and then to build the roller dam. You know. I mean that’s a. There’s a wonderful story. We had the hundredth birthday of the roller dam. This was Harry’s idea to have a dam birthday party. But that roller dam works the same way it did in 1915. The only thing they’ve added is 120 electricity. They monitor the water level now, but the guy that lives there has to go adjust the rollers. And that, it’s unique because a lot of the dams in the world, the German design, are for power. Hydropower. And this is irrigation for the most part. The hydro came in with the Orchard Mesa irrigation district in 1933. I’m talking about history, not the Tribunes. I’m sorry.
Lisa: No, that’s okay. I mean, it’s so interesting though. It’s tough because it’s all connected, and it’s all so fascinating. It’s really hard. No, but that’s really interesting. And I mean, I was asking you what was your favorite story? Well, going back to the papers quick, though. So, everything turned out great, perfectly, through so many people’s hard work.
Priscilla: The angels, the people that just. At the right time, in the right place, you know, starting with Susan and on. I mean, it just, it was meant to be, I think.
Lisa: So many things had to fall into place and they did. But I am just curious, though. If you knew that they were there, you knew that they were at risk. If for some reason they didn’t let you take them, did you have a plan B to kidnap them? Because if it were me, I would have.
Priscilla: There were a couple of discussions along those lines, but without having, you know, the Sentinel, Grand Junction Media’s, permission, we wouldn’t have been able legally to do that. And so. And I think Jay. I sat next to him at a meeting, a 150/250 meeting, and he didn’t know what we had done. I mean, I think he was pleased. But, you know, we had to, we had to dot the I’s and cross the T’s as best we could, knowing as little as we knew.
Lisa: Right. So you could have had them, but you wouldn’t have been able to use them or do anything with them. That makes sense.
Priscilla: Yeah. And without that, you know, we wouldn’t have had CHRAB’s money for the boxes and, you know, and the help, the Colorado Virtual Library’s help. And. Yeah, I. You know, that’s interesting. There was a plan at midnight with trucks.
Lisa: Just in case?
Priscilla: I think that somebody talked about. But, you know, it’s like, where do you hide 5,500 issues? You know, I mean, it’s. It takes a lot of space. People are, you know, they come to the museum and it’s like, well, they’re just boxes. Why don’t you hide them? Why don’t you put them upstairs? And it’s like, no, we want people to understand. This is what they. this is what we have. This is what we had to deal with. And, and we still go back and look at. We have to research or get the photos. you know, a new photo from the cover page that didn’t come out as clear as it might have or. Or, you know, whatever it takes to research something. We do our best.
Lisa: Right. And I just. That physical representation of over a hundred years of history is also really cool.
Priscilla: It’s amazing.
Lisa: Is there anything else that you want to share about the newspapers, the Historical Society?
Priscilla: Let’s see. We appreciate everybody’s financial support for the Tribunes. It is one of our biggest expenses. And you know, and that they, that they enjoy using it. And if people are really bored, the correcting, you know, I was in the top 10 of correctors for a while and now it’s more like the top 25. But I think the, pandemic people stayed home and you know, did corrections. But like you know, the misspelling of the names. It’s so much more helpful to have, you know, to be able. Because it might be the only time that that person was mentioned and if their name’s spelled wrong then you’re not going to find them. But we appreciate everybody’s support, enthusiasm, and we’re so glad that we’ve been able. We’re, it’s one of the things we’re most proud of.
Lisa: It’s a huge accomplishment. Really.
Priscilla: You know, we’ll keep going.
Lisa: You still have what the 90s through 2000?
Priscilla: Let’s see, at Colorado Virtual library now is through 2003.
Lisa: Okay.
Priscilla: So that’ll be the next batch. So then that’s what, 11 years. And we also have Clifton Tribunes which are 99% the same as the Palisade Tribune. But you know, again it’s shared history. But we don’t quite know what to do with those. Just because they’re so similar. The front page in most of the articles are really about Palisade. Unless there was something that, you know, was unique to Clifton that got covered that week because it was, you know, just double the work for Bob Dougherty. The saddest thing, he passed away in the last couple of years. And here’s a man who wrote obituaries for a living and, you know, and nobody. His obituary never appeared in the Sentinel. I mean, and nobody, I think, knew enough about him to make it, you know, he was kind of a strange and.
Lisa: That’s depressing!
Priscilla: Yeah. Somebody else was, you know, also remorseful that, here’s a guy who helped us understand. And then we don’t know his details.
Lisa: Well, that is just a perfect reminder just to write things down.
Priscilla: Oh, yeah.
Lisa: And things that we maybe don’t think are newsworthy today, they could be newsworthy in the future. So documentation is so important.
Priscilla: And especially in oral histories, you find people that just don’t want attention. They have done so, we’ve found several of these. Palisade people that have done so much, and they’re just very, you know, they’re not. It’s not all about them. That they’re very, sharing of, you know, and to drag information out of them, you know, which I have done, as best I can. But it’s, you know, they’re just unassuming and they don’t want to be in the spotlight. So that makes some oral histories hard to come by.
Lisa: How do you get information out of people who don’t want to share? If I can steal some skills from you for the future. Not talking about you, but sometimes I do talk to somebody who wants to talk to me but is very reticent. So I’m curious.
Priscilla: Boy, you know, it’s. It’s just pretty much, keep approaching them but not, tell me this or I’ll, you know, just once they’re confident that, you know, you’re not going to embarrass them or shine a public light on them or something. That it’s for history. One of our books is the History of Fruit and Wine in Palisade. And there’s a lot of books about the winery side, but none of them say what ours says. And Doug Caskey at the wine, had me send a copy of ours to Warren Winiarski, who also just passed away. A little bit. He said ours is the accurate one. So if Warren Winiarski likes it, it must be good, huh?
Lisa: Nice. That’s awesome.
Priscilla: But, you know, and it’s because I just kept after a couple of people that, you know, needed to. To share. And I knew that they’re not, you know, it’s not all about them. So they’re not going to tell you something. Because we’ve had other people who come in with just, this is the way it was. And, you know, you can verify in a couple of conversations with people that, that’s not the way it was.
Lisa: That’s funny. Oh, yeah. That’s the other problem. Right. Sorting out made up history.
Priscilla: Yeah. And, with newspapers, too. I mean, because, you know. Well, now they’re. You don’t even. There are no newspapers now. There’s one person’s opinion and another one. It’s been an interesting endeavor, one of which we’re very proud of, in that these kind of results are, that people are reading them and appreciating them is, you know, it’s what, it was our mission was to preserve and communicate.
Lisa: Yeah, yeah. Mission accomplished, I think was what you said when the papers were rescued, but now even more so. So. Well, I really appreciate you. Is there anything else you want to add in.
Priscilla: I just didn’t realize this stopped before we really had started the digitization project. I should probably revise it and add. Although, let’s see, JoAnn has put the new. The viewership numbers in our social media and maybe on the website. And, you know, that. I mean, I think that’s something to be proud of.
Lisa: Absolutely.
Priscilla: And verification, that we’re going in the right direction.
Lisa: Yeah, absolutely.
Priscilla: Yeah. I don’t know what we would have done. I mean, we would have done the museum and other things. We just wouldn’t have the Tribunes.
Lisa: Right. You wouldn’t have the archive, the record.
Priscilla: And things in the museum wouldn’t be the same because we got the information from the Tribunes.
Lisa: Right, right. Well, thank you so much for that work, all of your work, and also just for spending time with me.
Priscilla: Oh, well thank you! This is exciting!
Lisa: It’s amazing to think that this entire archive of over 110 years of history would not have existed without the work of a group of volunteers (aka angels) assisted by some very well-timed luck.
You can browse the Palisade Tribune at historicpalisade.org – click on Newspapers in the menu at the top of the page. And make sure you have a lot of time to set aside, because you’re going to get sucked in! You can also join the Historical Society or make a donation on their website.
And if you don’t subscribe to the Historical Society newsletter already, you can sign up there! It’s a free monthly newsletter filled with stories about Palisade of the past and today. You can find that on their website as well – historicpalisade.org. And does anybody out there have any of those 1960s issues of the Tribune? Knowing that they’re missing makes me want to go on a serious hunt of all of the local antique stores.
The podcast’s theme music is Riverbend by Geoff Roper.
Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.