40 Stories in 40 Weeks: the Land Trust’s 25th Anniversary

The beginning

In 1980, the Mesa Land Trust was founded by local landowners concerned about heightened development pressures presented by the oil-shale boom. John and Doris Butler, Harry Talbott, Blaine Derrick and Herman Allmaras spent many hours around the Butler’s coffee table forming and guiding the organization. The Land Trust began its work by preserving several small orchards on East Orchard Mesa and received its first three conservation easements in 1982.

The Land Trust was one of the nation’s first agricultural land ...

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Colorado West Land Trust Receives Grant to Remotely Monitor Properties During Time of COVID

Colorado West Land Trust has received a grant enabling it to use remote technologies, such as satellite and aerial imagery, to monitor conservation properties as an alternative to in-person monitoring. Keep It Colorado, a nonprofit coalition of conservation partners that includes Colorado West Land Trust, awarded the grant. Keep It Colorado received investments of $155,000 from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO)’s Resilient Communities program and the Gates Family Foundation and re-granted the funds to 12 land trusts across ...

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Restoration continues to engage volunteers on Monument Road and enhances views leading to Colorado National Monument

Late last November, restoration ecologist David Varner led a group of Riverside Educational Center middle school students on an after-school working field trip to collect seed from native plants at the Three Sisters and Lunch Loop area on Monument Road. Learning about the different plants and following meticulous directions, the students collected an abundance of seeds.

Through another partnership with Colorado Mesa University professors Margot Becktell and Deb Kennard, students are now propagating the seeds in a greenhouse. Once the seedlings ...

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The Fouts Ranch: Instilling Values by Protecting Land

When Jeremy and Candice Fouts signed the deed on a 1,707-acre ranch in Delta County, they had their children in mind. “We bought this property to make a deliberate lifestyle change and to do something together as a family,” Jeremy explains. “I grew up in eastern Oklahoma on a farm and ranch. A retired minister moved to my hometown from Delta, and he’s the one that taught me the love of hunting, fishing and being outdoors.”

“I also learned a lot of life skills working on a farm—how to treat others, how to respect the land and wildlife—that’s what set me up to have a ...

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Twenty Years of Habitat Restoration in Delta County

John Welfelt moves through a dense patch of willows and I lose sight of him for a moment. “Keep track of how much water you see!” he yells back with a sense of well-deserved pride. There’s water everywhere on his property; spring-fed reservoirs form a loose grid pattern that percolate water down to a wetland near the Uncompahgre River.

Rabbitbrush, three-leaf sumac, cattails and milkweed stand tall and thick against the shoreline of the ponds. Brush them aside and you see ...

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Video Depicts Ranch Life In Unaweep Canyon

Jessie and Beeman Casto married in 1952 and worked the land together on the on the property where Beeman grew up. The Castos didn’t want to see the place that Beeman’s ancestors homesteaded in the 1890s ever developed. In 2015 they worked with Mesa Land Trust to place a permanent conservation easement on the land, helping assure that their grandchildren and great-grandchildren can keep ranching, deer and elk winter range remains intact, and the vistas of Unaweep Canyon and the habitat along West Creek would never be developed. We hope you enjoy their story! If you would like to support our work and help Mesa Land Trust raise an additional $35,000 for our 35th anniversary, click here.

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Anna Roehm Lawson and the Heart of a Family Ranch on Pinyon Mesa

One hour from Grand Junction and 15 miles west of the Glade Park Store, a metal gate leads to the original log cabin home of Anna Roehm Lawson, who has lived on this land since she was ten days old. A friendly young hound and an elderly dachshund greet us. Anna is already busy in the kitchen, talking on the phone. She welcomes us into the newest addition to the multi-sectioned log home, where she is surrounded by a variety ...

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Young Farmers: Investing in the Peach Industry

In the fall of 2007, James Sanders was stuck at a railroad crossing in Palisade waiting for a train to pass. He caught sight of the Fruit and Wine Realty office and wandered over to take a look. That night he went home to his wife Laura and said, “I have a crazy idea.” “And I’d been with him long enough to know that if he said he had a crazy idea, it was going to be really crazy,” added ...

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Field to Fork CSA: Local Agriculture in the Grand Valley

Scott and Jessica Washkowiak know the importance of conservation to the future of farming. In 2012, the young couple, who operate Field to Fork CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), began working conserved land owned by two of Mesa Land Trust’s founders, Mike and Blakely Mechau, near Palisade.

In 2005, the Mechaus placed a conservation easement on 20 acres of farm land through the Mesa Land Trust. This conservation easement ensures that this acreage will always be used for farming and will never ...

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