By Caitlin Switzer

Over the mountains they came, chasing dreams of better lives as the hot, dry winds of the dust bowl nipped at their heels. A chance conversation among friends at the Delta Museum recalled the homes, if not the faces, of those long-ago, hard-luck families—refugees whose tales have nearly been lost to the ravages of time.

“Depending on who you talk to, there were fifty-four families relocated from the Eastern Plains to Montrose, Delta and Mesa counties between 1935 and 1937,” said Museum Curator Jim Wetzel, who learned of the
resettlement homes while conversing with locals Gordon Hodgin, 92, and Bob Crim, 80. “Each family was given some acreage and a house. The houses were all identical, rented from the government for $12 a month. It was a government resettlement program, with $1 million set aside. Twelve homes were built on California Mesa—six on each side of the road.”

After the program ended, some of the homes were moved to the neighborhood of  Tenth and Grand in Delta. “They were kind of white, with dark doors, and they looked almost the same,” Hodgin said.

Crim, although not from a resettled family, lived in one of the government houses as a young man. “We lived there from about 1940 to 1944,” Crim remembered.

 “I think they had hardwood floors, and they had a water pump inside. We had an acre for a garden, and a big
pasture, and everybody could have one cow—for $12. That was probably the best place we lived.” 

Photo: Look-alike houses in Delta.   ©Roger Young for SJPG.