Loyd Files arrived in Grand Junction with $5 or less in the early 1920s and became one of the Western Slope’s most successful businessmen.
Files, who died Aug. 7 at 107, had all kinds of jobs before he began opening businesses.
He homesteaded with his brother, Ray, and they raised potatoes and shot rabbits for Thanksgiving meals. Loyd Files later worked the jackhammer on a crew building trails and roads.
Files had come by covered wagon to Colorado with his family from Kansas in 1914, settling in Lamar.
In a few years, Loyd and Ray Files decided to strike out for Oregon driving a Model T. On the way, they stopped in Grand Junction and were so impressed with the area’s fruits and vegetables that they decided to stay.
In a short time, they opened Files Brothers Wrecking Yard and later the Starlite Drive In, the first drive-in in Grand Junction and only the second in Colorado.
They opened a midget race- car track and raced their own cars. Later, Ray Files opened the first shopping center, the Teller Arms.
Over the years, Loyd Files opened United Sand and Gravel, and the Monterey Park Apartments (low-income housing for the elderly), built a hangar at Walker Field and funded scholarships for Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and Mesa State College in Grand Junction.
He helped establish the Museum of the West and set up the Files Research Library.
The Fileses also were involved in the Files Little League Park, Hilltop Community Resources, the Files Center for handicapped children and disabled adults, and the Family Health West Alzheimer’s unit in Fruita.
Loyd Files was born Jan. 23, 1899, in Winfield, Kan., and attended high school there.
He met a young schoolteacher, Cordelia Hamilton of Fruita, at a country dance. They married April 26, 1924, and lived on the family farm outside Grand Junction.
They adopted two baby girls, and the family moved to Grand Junction when the girls were old enough for school.
Files had only a few illnesses in his life, said his daughter Jan is Files Miller of Grand Junction.
“I gave him the chickenpox when I was a kid,” she said.
Always tall and lean, he moved fast, and family members said they had to run to keep up with him.
When asked how he was, he always replied, “When I get old, I’ll let you know,” said his daughter Joanne Bell of Grand Junction.
In addition to his daughters, he is survived by nine grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife and one granddaughter.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
