There may still be some old-timers who dispute that. What is now the Colorado River in Colorado used to be called the Grand River, and the name is reflected in nearby place names such as Grand Junction and Grand Mesa. The Colorado River flowed southwest from where the Grand River and the Green River met in Utah. Some relatives of mine who lived in Colorado refused to call the Grand River by its new name after it was changed in the 1920's.
In 1961, I rode in a 1954 Studebaker station wagon up a dirt road at the bottom of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The scenery was spectacular--sheer cliffs on either side of the Gunnison River, with its rapids. Today, that road is at the bottom of the Blue Mesa reservoir.
Grand Junction, possibly named for the junction of the rivers including Colorado, Delores and Gunnison rivers, Green river to the east and White river to the northwest. Interesting the use of term Grand, as in Grand Mesa... 360,000 acres of flat top mesa, largest in the world, and home to 280 natural lakes as well as many man made ones. I lived in Paonia for a time, about 20 miles from the north rim of the canyon. The old road is under Blue Mesa, Morrow Point and Crystal resevoirs. Coronado had a hard time going north with all the canyons in his search for the 7 cities of gold, and Brigham Young and the mormons nearly perished before they crawled out “hole in the wall” at Lake Powell area... interesting history.