The Electric Building at 3rd and Main
Today, the Enterprise Bldg, renamed after Public Service moved out in the late 1960s
Winter, 1907. Imagine that you’re trekking through snow to the bug-infested (or worse) woodpile before dawn. After hauling fuel back to stoke the massive kitchen stove, you put the water on and begin your morning ritual of biscuit baking. With a small sigh, you drag a finger through the thin layer of wood ash that’s settled on the counter since yesterday’s cleaning. It’s then you notice smoke eddying around your head, and you fiddle with the stove’s dampers until heat is more evenly distributed and the air clears.
As a housewife, you’ll spend most of your day around that good ol’ stove, reloading, stoking, fiddling, disposing of ashes, and keeping the home fires burning. Hot water will wash dishes and clothes and later fill the bathtub. Bubbling pots hold the evening meal, while the lopsided cake cools on the windowsill. The stove’s surface will heat and reheat irons for wrinkled laundry that’s flash-frozen dry on the outside line.
Keeping house wasn’t easy in the early 1900s in Grand Junction. Yet when the
gas cook stove was introduced, cutting kitchen work by half (surely a great
selling point), the typical wife regarded the appliance with the same leery look
she’d give a cornered skunk.
How to alleviate disdain and distrust? This 1907 Thanksgiving menu I found provides a clue.
Grand Junction Electric, Gas, and Manufacturing Co menu, 1907
To educate the public, utility companies (which sold the stoves) gave cooking lessons. Grand Junction Electric, Gas, and Manufacturing Company believed strongly in this, offering classes every Wednesday and Saturday at their office near Main and 5th streets. After the demonstration, students were encouraged to peruse the gallery of stoves that lined the display area. Sales soared, and “Now you’re cooking with gas!” became an oft-sung adage of speed and efficiency.
Typical gas company display, LOC P&P Div Detroit Pub Co Coll, LC-D417-159 Gas range of the era
In 1909, the president of the growing utilities company, Orson Adams, commissioned a beautiful Electric Building at the southwest corner of 3rd and Main streets. Since his 1887 arrival in Grand Junction, he’d swiftly moved the frontier town into the 20th century with the best transportation and utilities available. A testament to Adams’ future-sightedness, his new edifice would be the first steel-framed structure this side of the Continental Divide.
Original architect's rendition, Denver Public Library, X-8706
Originally designed with five stories by architect John J. Huddart, of Denver, its first incarnation had just two floors, along with a wide basement that extended below the east sidewalk. In addition to the utility company’s offices, the $50,000 building would house headquarters for the Grand Junction and Grand River Railway streetcar system. On the second floor, 20 “handsomely appointed” offices and several lavatories would serve various tenants, mostly lawyers. Elaborate tin ceilings, brick walls, and wood flooring added to the interior’s elegance. Completed during the autumn of 1909, 101 S. 3rd Street was the talk of the town.
1909 New Electric Building 1909, new Electric Building lit up
In 1918, a third and final floor was added, and soon after Hoel-Ross Business College, later Ross Business College, moved in. It would be their home for many years.
The Electric and Gas Company (and after 1926, Public Service) hosted many presentations at the Electric Building, showing how to use each new appliance and gadget. It was an era of great invention, with the debut of an “electric suction-sweeper,” the electric beater and iron, pop-up toaster, waffle iron, garbage disposal, and wringer-less washing machine, to name a few. Home economists, such as Miss Ardella Crockett, demonstrated new recipes, like frozen custard made in a General Electric refrigerator freezer and fruit cookies baked in an electric oven. These lessons were powerful selling tools, and many excited attendees made purchases.
The Electric Building, 1920s, courtesy Dena Carpenter With Hoel-Ross Business College on 2nd Floor, 1930s
Cooking wasn’t the only activity happening on the corner of 3rd and Main. During World War II, U.S. Vanadium Company had secret offices on the second floor. William Chenoweth, employed by the Atomic Energy Commission for 30 years, reported that U.S. Vanadium worked on the Manhattan Project, “code name used by the Army Corps of Engineers for the development of atomic weapons.” It’s rumored that the uranium mined around Western Colorado was used in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, but this has yet to be definitively established
Manhattan Project office was on the 3rd Floor of Electric Building during WWII
According to Dena Carpenter, assistant to P.J. McGovern, owner of the building since 1997, the name was changed from Electric Building to Enterprise Building when Public Service moved down Main Street to its new offices in the late 1960s. For the first time in its existence, 101 S. 3rd had no ties to Grand Junction’s utilities.
The building has undergone several changes over the years, the last being a 2004 facelift, returning it to its Victorian beauty. Receiving the 2005 Historic Preservation Award, it is a graceful reminder to our downtown’s legacy.
The renovation did have its moments, though. The prior exterior included granite panels that aligned the roofline and above the first floor. Removing the panels proved a bit messy. Dena Carpenter recalls sitting in her third floor office one hot July afternoon when a flustered construction worker came in. He’d encountered a grisly sight when he’d pulled a panel off an alley-side wall. Between the granite and plywood had resided a huge nursery of bats. As the granite came down, so had the baby bats. None survived the fall.
Another story Dena shared involved the Hampton Inn, just east of the Enterprise Building, when it was built. Nobody remembered that the Enterprise’s basement extended under the eastern sidewalk —until a bobcat broke through the concrete and dangled over an unexpected black hole.
Much of early Grand Junction’s progress was promoted on this very special corner. By the way, the building’s looking for a new name. Got any ideas?
Orson Adams — Man of Progress
Orson Adams, 1909
When Orson Adams died in 1937, he was a man of many friends. This is surprising, as in 1914 he was imprisoned six years at Leavenworth Penitentiary for embezzling. Adams was involved in a plethora of local enterprises, but his day job was chief officer at Mesa County National Bank. Keeping two sets of books led to the bank’s closing in 1913. Depositors were reimbursed only 50 cents on the dollar.
His obituary was kind, praising him as the most progressive early-day citizen of Grand Junction and referring to his embezzling as a “tragic circumstance.” The Daily Sentinel reporter reminded readers that Adams still had hundreds of loyal friends who had come to his defense, and though he had flaws, his “virtues overbalanced these.” He concluded that after all was said and done, the man had accomplished great things for the young town.
The physical plant of the Grand Junction Electric, Gas, and Manufacturing Company was located on the south side of South Avenue between 5th and 6th streets
1909 Grand Junction & Grand River Railway inauguration, Main at 4th, offices in the Electric Building
A Grand River Valley Railway token. These are highly collectible.
Grand Junction’s Main Street in 1911. Notice Interurban in the distance, coming west from 5th St.
The Interurban passes in front of the Fair Store on the SE corner of 5th and Main, 1910s
Remnant of Interurban tracks on NW corner 5th St. and South Avenue
Daily Sentinel headlines on the opening of the "Fruit Belt" interurban line to Fruita