Grand Valley Days (Parachute)

On the Saturday morning of Grand Valley Days, breakfast is served from 7 to 10 a.m. at Grand Valley United Methodist Church, 132 N. Parachute Avenue. All proceeds go to the church, and in 2025 a bake sale ran alongside. The organizers’ notice reads: “Enjoy This Age Old Tradition With Your Family Before the 118th Annual Parade.” That count was set for 2026. The Post Independent reported that the 2026 celebration marked the town’s 118th anniversary. Parachute was incorporated as Grand Valley on April 1, 1908, 118 years before. The 2026 celebration was dedicated to Sherry Keinath, whom the paper called “a longtime key donor and community fixture.”

Saturday on Second Street

The parade steps off at 10 a.m. on Second Street. Its announcers and sound system stand in front of the Learning Center. This is a symmetrical brick building of 1937 with offices and a gymnasium at the center and a wing on either side. One wing held the high school classrooms and the other a lunchroom, shop and elementary rooms. It was the first building in Grand Valley to combine a high school and an elementary school under one roof. A 1965 bond issue added three elementary classrooms on the east end and a new gymnasium on the west. The building now houses the Grand Valley Center for Family Learning, and Garfield County School District #16 lends it for the day.

The 2026 theme was “Red, White and Bucking Blue.” The grand marshals were Mr. and Mrs. Lynn Shore, a couple in realty who came to the community from Denver in 1987. Mrs. Shore volunteers for Meals on Wheels, Garfield County Literacy and the fire department. Mr. Shore has served on the Battlement Mesa Metropolitan District, Garfield School District 16 and the Grand Valley Fire Protection District.

When the floats have passed, the crowd moves onto the lawn. The local branch of the Garfield County Public Library supplies the children’s games, and Alpine Echo plays, with Gerhard Rill donating the music. Parade, games and music cost nothing. In 2025 vendors, food and games spread from the lawn onto First Street, and the farmers market at Beasley Park ran until 2 p.m. In 2026 a softball tournament filled the afternoon from 1 to 5. A Colorado travel guide adds a car show and community laser tag to the festival’s list of activities.

The arena on La Plata Circle

The Grand Valley Park Association, a Colorado nonprofit, runs the celebration. It states its “original goal of preserving tradition by maintaining the rodeo grounds and coordinating traditional Grand Valley Day Events.” The grounds at 100 La Plata Circle also serve equine events, local 4-H and FFA, and other gatherings that need a large outdoor space.

The Saturday rodeo is billed as the main event. Mutton bustin’ comes first, with young riders taking their turns before the performance. A Post Independent photograph shows a rider at the mutton busting in 2022. The CPRA rodeo starts at 7 p.m., with a beer garden and food vendors. Admission is paid at the gate, and children eight and under get in free.

The arena does not empty when the last event ends. Rick Mancuso and the Fyve Star Band play country and classic rock and roll right after the rodeo, free of charge. In 2025 they started at 10 p.m. The association’s page reads: “Rick and his band love coming and providing dancing music after the rodeo. Bring your dancing partner.”

Friday nights at the arena have changed. In 2025 the Friday program was the final Grand Valley Park Association Gymkhana. On Friday, August 14, 2026, the association held its first annual Jackpot Team Roping at 7 p.m., with spectators admitted free. Its notice said: “See one of the sports that started what has become our modern rodeo!” The 2025 schedule also included a slack rodeo at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Thursday dinner, Sunday ice cream

The celebration opens on Thursday evening across the Colorado River in Battlement Mesa. There Alpine Bank holds a free customer appreciation dinner at 6 p.m. at 82 Sipprelle Drive. The 2026 invitation read: “Come and join Anne and all of the gang from Alpine Bank.” Battlement Mesa was built by Exxon and the Colony and Union Oil of California oil shale projects as a residential community for their workers. It has since become a group of subdivisions for families, a range of professions, and retirees.

On Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m., the Grand Valley Historical Society holds an old-fashioned ice cream social at its museum in Wasson-McKay Park. The Post Independent places it at the Wasson-McKay House. There is free ice cream and music by Noodle Soup, and the organizers call it the way “to finish off the historical weekend.” The festival’s Instagram account lists an “Ice cream & Pie Social.” The same account calls Grand Valley Days “The longest running annual event in Parachute, Colorado!!”

Pahchouc, Grand Valley, Parachute

Much of the Grand Valley area was first occupied by the Ute people. According to the school district’s history, the Utes called the creek Pahchouc, and early settlers mispronounced the word as parachute. Uncover Colorado tells a fuller version. It says Pahchouc was the Ute word for twins, because the creek’s mouth lay between two similar mountains. It also gives another account: surveyors sent by the government in 1879 thought the creek’s washings looked like a parachute. The creek runs 14.7 miles, and the town sits where it meets the Colorado River.

J.B. Hurlburt founded the town of Parachute in 1883. It was incorporated as Grand Valley on April 1, 1908. Uncover Colorado says the new name was meant to lure tourists. The Garfield County State Bank, the first and only bank in Grand Valley, went up around 1908 or 1910. Its organizers were local men, among them F.W. Poppell, M.H. Streit, James Wheeler, and Harry and Alex Aplin, joined by a Mr. Clarkson of Rifle. In the 1920s A.T. Cooley bought the bank, and Judd Sipprelle stayed on as cashier until 1937, when conditions no longer justified keeping it open. During the oil shale boom the building became a saloon and later a restaurant. The county genealogy site says it still stands as a real estate office.

The oil shale years set the town’s population, rising and falling with the work. Anvil Points and the Union Oil works on Parachute Creek ran after the Second World War and closed around 1956. They reopened in the 1960s and closed again in 1967. In 1980 Exxon joined TOSCO to build the Colony plant on Parachute Creek, and the population boomed. In 1982, after crude oil prices fell, Exxon stopped construction and laid off some 2,100 employees. In 1986 the town took back the name Parachute.

The celebration kept the old name. A photograph in the Uncover Colorado guide shows a pair of letters on the mountain, captioned: “’GV’ on the mountain is for Grand Valley.”