Prominent in the fruit industry of Mesa county, and in business and political circles, Chester E. Jaynes, whose fine fruit farm is located one mile and a half north of Grand Junction, is one of the best esteemed citizens of his portion of the county, and exemplifies in his daily life the best attributes of Colorado citizenship and business enterprise. He was born at Joliet, Illinois, on August 31, 1874, and is the son of Ezra E. and Mary A. (Klingler) Jaynes, natives, respectively, of Vermont and Pennsylvania, and now living at Grand Junction. Mr. Jaynes grew to the age of eighteen in his native state, and received the education in the public schools and the business college at Joliet. In the spring of 1892 he came to Colorado with his parents and located with them at Grand Junction which has been his home ever since except one year passed at Colorado Springs, where he conducted a cigar and confectionery store. In the spring of 1899 he purchased thirteen acres of wild and uncultivated land near Palisades, on which he set out fruit trees and made improvements, and which he sold two years later at a profit of one thousand eight hundred dollars. In 1901 he bought the ten and one-half acres on which he now lives. The land is all in fruit, apples, peaches and pears. In 1902 he sold two thousand six hundred boxes of peaches, two thousand boxes of apples and six hundred boxes of pears; and in 1903 one thousand eight hundred boxes of apples, three hundred of peaches and six hundred of pears. His business, although varying in volume, is all the time successful, and the returns for his enterprise and labor are large. On January 31, 1901, he was married to Miss Florence L. Osburn, a native of Laveta, Colorado, daughter of J.W. Osborn, of Grand Junction. They have one child, their son Ellis. In politics Mr. Jaynes is an active and forceful Republican, always zealous in the service of his party and frequently a delegate to its conventions.
Source: Bowen, A. W. Progressive Men of Western Colorado. Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1905.