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When I was attending Mesa College back in the early 80's, by the end of the school year you literally knew every one that attended. Just recently I had the privilege of spending some time on the campus of Mesa State College and it was hard to recognize it as the little collage of my past, as it has grown to almost university proportions. Growth and progress seems to have been the norm all over Junction over the last 20 years as we even have our own version of a Mouse Trap at the intersection of Hwy 50 and the new Riverside Parkway.
You notice I just used the name Junction as many folks refer to this city. There are many junctions in this area, for instance, highway 50 and I-70. Yet the Junction the name is referring to is the junction of the Gunnison River flowing in from the south and the mighty Colorado River dropping out of the Rocky Mountains to the east in preparation of forming the incredible canyons of Utah, fill Lake Powell, power Las Vegas and climax with the Grand Canyon, quite a Grand River wouldn't you say? That is, by the way, what that river was called until the 1920's when it was changed to the Colorado to match the state (I guess), hence the name Grand Junction.
Grand Junction, being the county seat of Mesa County, is really the hub of activity in the Grand Valley with shopping hot spots such as its fluffed up Main Street, the North Avenue Strip (the hot spot to cruise when cruising was cool), Mesa Mall and the huge box stores west of town. Junction has also become the hub for medical treatment on the western slope with the ever expanding Saint Mary's Hospital, a great Community Hospital and some new Out Patient Surgery facilities. Junction is also home to many industries including the on again/off again energy industries of Natural Gas, Oil, Oil Shale and near by Coal (oh, almost forgot Uranium). Last, but I am sure not least, Junction is a transportation hub with several highways, a busy railroad system and a large airport.
Yes, despite all of its booms and busts this city moves forward and progresses, which isn’t always good, but as they always say, progress always progresses. Do they always say that or is that some thing I just made up?
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