You are here

Colorado » The Colorado » Mesa County » Clifton » Cross Orchards Museum

Cross Orchards Museum

-A A +A
1909. 3073 F Rd. (NR)

On 243 acres acquired by heirs of the Red Cross Shoe fortune, the Red Cross Land and Fruit Company was formed in 1909 as a demonstration scientific orchard. Unimpressed, coddling moths and woolly aphids chewed up the profits of one of Colorado's largest apple orchards, which was subsequently subdivided and sold at auction in 1923. Farm buildings, including a huge, stepped-gabled barn, a blacksmith shop, a bunk-house, and packing sheds, have been preserved in a 24-acre museum, which exhibits vintage road building equipment and horsedrawn farm machinery. The original Farm-house was razed, but the summerhouse stands. This branch site of the Museum of Western Colorado is now hemmed in by new subdivisions.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel
×

Data

What's Nearby

Kettle-Jens House (Anderegg House)
State Home and Training School (Teller Institute for Indians)
Visitors' Center
Mesa State College
Western Colorado Center for the Arts

Citation

Thomas J. Noel, "Cross Orchards Museum", [Grand Junction, Colorado], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CO-01-ME16.

Print Source

Buildings of Colorado, Thomas J. Noel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 509-509.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,