Classic Photos of Grand Junction Horses Through the Years

If you enjoy riding horses, horse racing, or just love animals, take a look at this gallery of Robert Grant photos featuring Grand Junction horses.

The majority of these images were captured in the mid-1940s. There are a few exceptions, a few racing photos from the 70s. In any case, these beautiful animals graced the Grand Valley over the years.

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Newest Photo Theme

You may have heard about the emergency roundup of wild horses in Western Colorado. That got my mind thinking about horses.

From time to time I root through my file cabinets seeking out my grandpa's photos and negatives detailing Grand Junction history. In this case, the search focused on the topic of horses.

Searching Through Thousands of Photos

This is no easy task. While no reliable count exists, I would guess the collection of Bob Grant prints and negatives I inherited numbers well into the tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand. These photos encompass a 50-year-long career covering events from the Great Depression, World War II, and decades of Western Colorado history.

With a narrowed down theme of "horses" in mind, a search commenced. What you are seeing represents the first 15 or so photos I found featuring horses, or as in one example, a horse event.

Grand Junction Horse Events

In all cases, these images are from races or other horse related events. The one exception would be a photo of Bob Grant's daughter, Gloria, with their horse.

I'm a life-long resident of Grand Junction, and somehow didn't realize the Mesa County Fairgrounds had been at its Orchard Mesa location for so long. Looking back to the 1970s, we used to call it Uranium Downs. A number of shots in this gallery show the fairgrounds at its present location.