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Mesa County, Colorado

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

35historic places

—earliest paper

1883formed

155,703pop. 2020

14cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 35 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1974. Most listings are in or near Grand Junction, Fruita, Whitewater.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Colorado is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Mesa titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

25 of 35 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

35 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Bloomfield Site	Whitewater	Site	1983
Calamity Camp	Gateway	District	2011
Cayton Guard Station	Silt	Building	2005
Clifton Community Center and Church	Clifton	Building	1982
Coates Creek Schoolhouse	Glade Park	Building	1993
Colorado National Monument Visitor Center Complex	Fruita	District	2003
Colorado River Bridge	De Beque	Structure	2002
Convicts' Bread Oven	Molina	Object	1974
Crissey, Herbert and Edith, House	Palisade	Building	2003
Cross Land and Fruit Company Orchards and Ranch	Grand Junction	District	1980
De Beque House	DeBeque	Building	1995
Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Depot	Grand Junction	Building	1992
Department of Energy Grand Junction Office	Grand Junction	District	2016
Devils Kitchen Picnic Shelter	Grand Junction	Building	1994
Fruita Bridge	Fruita	Structure	1985
Fruita Museum	Fruita	Building	1996
Grand Valley Diversion Dam	Palisade	District	1991
Handy Chapel	Grand Junction	Building	1994
Hotel St. Regis	Grand Junction	Building	1992
IOOF Hall	De Beque	Building	1993
Kettle-Jens House	Clifton	Building	1983
Land's End Observatory	Whitewater	Building	1997
Loma Community Hall	Loma	Building	1995
Margery Building	Grand Junction	Building	1993
North Seventh Street Historic Residential District	Grand Junction	District	1984
Phillips, Harry and Lilly, House	Fruita	Building	1997
Pipe Line School	Glade Park	Building	1999
Rim Rock Drive Historic District	Grand Junction	District	1994
Saddlehorn Caretaker's House and Garage	Grand Junction	Building	1994
Saddlehorn Comfort Station	Grand Junction	Building	1994
Saddlehorn Utility Area Historic District	Grand Junction	District	1994
Serpents Trail	Grand Junction	Structure	1994
Stranges Grocery	Grand Junction	Building	2013
TBM Avenger Aircraft N53503	Grand Junction	Structure	2017
U.S. Post Office	Grand Junction	Building	1980

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Mesa was formed in 1883 (1883-02-14) from Gunnison.

MESA created from GUNNISON.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Mesa County population from 1890 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1890	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
4,260	9,267	22,281	33,791	38,974	50,715	81,530	116,255	155,703

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
Colorado National Monument	Park unit	22.0 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

14 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 14 of 14 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Calvary Cemetery	39.04631	-108.56748
Cedar Crest Cemetery	39.23695	-107.95933
Clover Cemetery	39.25497	-107.92339
Crown Point Cemetery	39.14201	-108.61791
Eagalite Cemetery	39.22253	-107.98977
Elmwood Cemetery	39.17386	-108.73453
Glade Park Cemetery	39.00748	-108.73898
Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery	39.09942	-108.39785
Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Masonic Cemetery	39.04303	-108.56786
Memorial Gardens of the Valley	39.07814	-108.50221
Mesa Cemetery	39.16753	-108.11958
Sacred Heart Cemetery	39.17206	-108.72964
The Veterans Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado	39.06446	-108.52612
Whitewater Cemetery	38.98192	-108.43647

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Mesa County, Colorado

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.