On May 24, 1911, President William Howard Taft established Colorado National Monument in Mesa County, near Grand Junction. Today the monument, one of eight in Colorado, encompasses more than 20,000 acres of sandstone cliffs and monoliths, scenic canyons,…

Perched on the edge of Grand Mesa in western Colorado’s Mesa County, the Lands End Observatory was built in 1936–37 and gives visitors a spectacular view of the Gunnison and Grand River Valleys, the Uncompahgre Plateau, the San Juan Mountains, and the La…

Mesa County is situated on 3,341 square miles of the eastern Colorado Plateau in western Colorado. The county is named for the wide, flat-topped mountains within its borders. The Spanish called such mountains mesas—meaning “tables.” The county’s largest…

At the memorial service for long-time congressman Wayne Aspinall in 1983, Colorado Governor Richard Lamm said, “you can’t take a drink of water in Colorado without remembering Wayne Aspinall.” Wayne Norviel Aspinall (1896–1983) was born in Ohio and…