Fort Collins, Colorado, is a city of 87,758 population (1990), located at an elevation of 4,984 feet in the north central portion of the state, approximately sixty-five miles north of Denver. Located on the Cache la Poudre River, a tributary of the South Platte River, Fort Collins is the county seat of Larimer County.
The earliest permanent settlement in the area began in the late 1850s and the city was incorporated in 1873. Horsetooth Reservoir, a part of the Colorado Big Thompson Project created in the 1940s, is adjacent to the city on the west, where the foothills of the Rocky Mountains begin.
The area surrounding Fort Collins, which averages roughly fifteen inches of precipitation yearly, is an important irrigated agricultural region of the state. Such crops as sugar beets, alfalfa, wheat, barley, and corn have been important historically, as has livestock raising. Colorado State University, the second largest university in the state, is located here.
In recent years, the city has diversified its economic base with the attraction of high-tech industries such as Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments.
THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN OCTOBER
Courtesy Fort Collins Historical Society
• The Colorado Central Railroad officially opened its office in 1877. This was a big event for the residents of Fort Collins. The morning the track was laid to the depot, a holiday was declared. All work came to a halt. Each man congratulated his neighbor upon the arrival of the new railroad. Instead of taking two days to get to Denver, it only took four hours.
• Fort Collins’ Businessmen’s Credit Assoc. organized in 1901. Dr. C.P. Miller elected president.
• In 1902 papers were filled in the county clerk’s office incorporating the New Providence Club of Fort Collins. According to the incorporation papers, the object of the said club was to form an association of respectable male citizens of Larimer County for mutual benefit and social entertainment, to lease rooms, purchase land and erect building thereon and to acquire by purchase or otherwise such lands or buildings as shall be necessary to promote and carry out the objects of the club.
• In 1902 in Loveland, the first four days of the week saw ten cases of drunk and general cussedness before the police court. The fines aggregated the sum of $55, which made quite a little revenue for the town of Loveland.
• In 1903 at the Colorado Federation of Women’s Clubs held in Colorado Springs, the gavel with which the president opened the convention was the first one the Colorado Federation ever owned. The gavel was made of black walnut from a tree planted in the Cache LaPoudre Valley in 1863 by our well-known pioneer, Abner Loomis. The gavel was made by a freshman in the Agricultural College shops and was presented on behalf of the college by Mrs. A.M. Hawley of Fort Collins, the second vice-president. In her annual address, president Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford said the gavel was “a product of Colorado skill so rich in patriotic and educational associations that it should serve as the symbol of the organized and orderly working force of Colorado working women.”
• In 1875, 68 people signed a petition to repeal the liquor ordinance. Town trustees voted the petition down 3 to 1.
• At the 1902 City Council Board Meeting the Proposed Ordinance 15 relating to the use of sling shots in the city limits was read once and ordered printed. Proposed Ordinance 16 relating to spitting in public places was read once and ordered printed.
• In 1893 the telephone lines from Longmont were nearing completion. Throngs of men were busily at work setting poles between Fort Collins and Loveland and also in the city. The company hoped to complete the line and have it in operation within a month.
• In 1902, Carlyle Lamb, the famous Long’s Peak guide, left Estes Park to make his home in Oregon. He sold his hotel, the Long’s Peak house to Enos A. Mills. Lamb was one of the best known guides in Colorado, having scaled Long’s Peak more than 200 times in 20 years.
• In 1870 G.C. de St. Quentine was given permission to peddle goods in Larimer County, by action of the county commissioners. This was the first official record of the presence of traveling businessmen in the county.
• In 1895 the Lindell flour mill burned down, again. This was Fort Collins only flour mill and the money loss was $125,000. This was the second time the mill had been destroyed; the first time being 1886. The Colorado Milling & Elevator Company owned it. Ansel Watrous stated that this date was “perhaps the darkest day of the entire decade when the Lindell Mill burned.” Presumed to be the work of arsonists, the Fort Collins Express stated, “if the fiend that set the fire was hanged, he would meet his just desserts.”
• Rohling Brothers opened a store in 1892 in the Andrews Building.
• In 1904, the first horse races were held in Prospect Park at the “Gentlemen’s Riding and Driving Club.” The 3-day event also featured wild west shows and a black cowboy who could throw a steer with his teeth. Wild horse races and relay races were also featured.
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”
~George Eliot