1844: Antoine Janis claimed to have staked his original squatters claim at Colona (Laporte).

 

1854: Larimer County part of newly-created Nebraska Territory.

 

1858-60: Antoine Janis and others located a townsite to the west of the present LaPorte and named Colona. The town was the first definite settlement in Larimer County and hoped to become the capital of Colorado.

 

1859: John B. Provost built a home on the south bank of the Poudre River and established a ferry on the river near the LaPorte crossing.

 

1859: Horace Greeley, famous editor of the New York Tribune, spent a night at LaPorte on his trip to California on the Overland Stage Line.

 

1860: Samuel Bingham made his home in Pleasant Valley near the foot of Bingham Hill, named for him.

 

1860: Judge W.B. Osborn of Loveland, came to Larimer County in this year. Homesteading near Thomas Valley, he was the first man to live on a board floor and under a shingle roof in Larimer County. He was also the first man to plant cottonwood trees in the Thompson Valley, an area he said was totally void of trees.

 

1860: George W. Pingree, a hunter and trapper, built a cabin near the present Rustic in Poudre Canyon for his headquarters. Pingree Hil and Pingree Park were named for him. He cut ties for the Union Pacific Railroad, then under construction.

 

1861: Jack Slade, the son of an Illinois congressman who turned outlaw on the Colorado frontier came to Larimer County. He served as a division chief for the Overland Stage, operating out of Virginia Dale near the Wyoming-Colorado border. His drunken escapades were credited with getting him fired from the stage company a year later. Slade moved to Virginia City, Montana in 1863 and was hanged a year later by vigilantes.

 

1861: After the Territory of Colorado was created and organized, Larimer County was created by an act of the first territorial legislature. Governor Gilpin appointed three county commissioners and other lesser officials. Frederick Sherwood, Alfred Howes and John J. Ryan headed the first official government of the county, named after General William Larimer, founder of Denver. was named the county seat in the act.

1862: Mrs. and Mrs. John Coy arrived in the Cache la Poudre Valley. Their farm was located on the Poudre River bottom east of the present city of Fort Collins. They were the first farmers in this area.

 

1864: Devastating flood nearly wiped out Camp Collins, formerly located west of LaPorte. The army sought a new location for its post. Joseph Mason, a claim holder along the Poudre south of Laporte, suggested a site between his claim and that of Frederick and Jesse Sherwood. Colonel Collins inspected and approved the site in August. It is not exactly certain when the post became a “fort”. It hardly deserved the designation of fort as there were no walls and no stockade. The buildings included officers’ quarters, barracks, mess hall, a storehouse and a guardhouse in an area totaling about 300 square feet.

 

1864: The first county jail, a small log building, was built in Laporte.

 

1864: The need for a burial site in Fort Collins came about during the establishment of the Fort Collins Military Post by Lt. Col. William O. Collins. The first burial ground was located about a half mile southwest of the post (present day location of the old Post Office at Oak Street and College Avenue). The Post Cemetery was abandoned in 1873.

 

1865: First assessment roll was made and Assessor James Smith found personal property in the county valued at $168,107.50. At the time of his assessment, there were 217 horses, 27 mules, 1 ass, 450 oxen, 319 cows, 728 calves and yearlings, 524 sheep, and 21 swine. The assessment roll for 1866 showed that 144 taxpayers were listed. For a period of 6 years after the first settlement was made in Larimer County, the pioneers escaped the call of the Tax Collector.

 

1865-66: 1865-66 Arapahoe Indians, under Chief Friday, camped on Frederick Sherwood’s ranch 4 miles southeast of Fort Collins. Sherwood was appointed by Abraham Lincoln as the agent to supply them with food.

 

1866: School was first taught by Elizabeth Keays, Auntie Stone’s niece. Alhthough she initially began classes for her son, she soon agreed to teach other settlers children. She taught in a small room in her aunt’s hotel. In the summer of 1866, a Fort Collins school district was formed with Captain Asaph Allen, Henry Peterson and W.D. Hays as members of the school board. They employed Elizabeth Keays to teach the first public school in one of the abandoned officer’s quarters. Her term was short as she quit three months later to marry Harris Stratton, a farmer and representative to the territorial legislature.

 

1866: Edward Melinger and Company opened the settlements first brewery – 7 years before Joseph Coors opened his brewery in Golden, Colorado

 

1867: Agnes Mason Giddings was born – first white child in Fort Collins

 

1867: The Reverend O.P. McMains, a Methodist minister, formed first religious class in Fort Collins.

 

1868: First meeting of the county commissioners occurred

 

1868 :Union Pacific Railroad replaces the Overland Stage. Quarried sandstone, granite and marble is shipped to the East, while eastern merchandise is shipped through to Wyoming and the West

 

1868: Fort Collins became a county seat

1870: Colorado Agricultural College (CSU) founded

 

1870: Henry C. Peterson and Auntie Stone burned the town’s first kiln of brick in 1870. The same year, Peterson and his family moved into the town’s first brick home on Lincoln Avenue.

 

1870: School District #5 was legally organized and established. The first Board of Director was Peter Anderson. Judge Alfred F. Howes began a movement to build a schoolhouse. A small frame house was used until 1879 when Remington School was built on Remington and Oak.

 

1870: Blake House, 200 Jefferson Street, first hotel in Fort Collins (built by George Blake) was purchased by Auntie Stone when she was 77. She changed the name to the Metropolitan Hotel and it later became known as the Cottage House.

 

1871: First school house erected.

 

1872: First Drug Store opened.

 

1872: The Larimer County Land Improvement Company was formed and the townsite was surveyed and platted. People of “good moral character” were solicited to join this new colony. Prospective colonists were sold certificates entitling them to tracts of land or lots in town. The first drawing for lots occurred in December. The colony immediately provided hundreds of new people, along with new buildings and businesses in town.

 

1872: Ben Whedbee moved his general store from “Old Town” to the southeast corner of College and Mountain Avenues in the “New Town”. A bitter contest ensued between the old and new and lasted for nearly 25 years.

 

1873: When Isabella Bird stopped in Fort Collins on her way to climb Long’s Peak, she found her hotel revolting (name of hotel unknown – only three hotels existed at the time – The Agricultural Hotel (purchased by D.M. Harris in 1877, moved to the southeast corner of College and Walnut, and the name changed to The Commercial), The Collins House on Jefferson Street, The National across from the Collins House and the Blake House. – “By the time we reached Fort Collins I was sick and dizzy with the heat of the sun and not disposed to be pleased with a most unpleasing place. It was a military post, but at present consists of a few frame houses put down recently on a bare and burning plain. The settlers have great expectations, but of what? The mountains look hardly near than from Greeley; one only realizes their vicinity by the force of their higher peaks. This house is freer from bugs than the one at Greeley but full of flies. These new settlements are altogether revolting, entirely utilitarian, given up to talk of dollars as well as to making them, with coarse speech, coarse food, coarse everything, nothing whatever to satisfy the higher cravings if they exist. Nothing on which the eye can rest with plesure. The lower floor of this inn swarms with locusts in addition to thousands of blac

 

1873: With advent of the Agricultural Colony, a new burying ground, later called Mountain Home Cemetery, was set aside at the east end of Laurel Street. Later the bones of persons who had been buried in the Army plot in the 100 block of West Oak Street were recovered and reburied in the new cemetery.

 

1873: First city election.

 

1873: Grasshopper plague and financial panic in the city.

 

The locusts came amain,
And settle on the plain;
They ate up all the grain,
And flew away again.
– Pushkin

1873: Auntie Stone sells her cabin and engages in other business pursuits including grist mill and a brick kiln.

 

1873: First Church (Methodist) built.

 

1873: Larimer County Express, the first newspaper in Fort Collins published by Joseph McClelland. The first issue was four pages long ad included local business announcements, a few poems and a somewhat humorous column called Expressive. McClelland promised to print a newspaper “ever on the side of Right, Truth and Justice, a foe to all monopoly.”

 

1873: First commercial production of red and gray sandstone occurred in the hogbacks near the towns of Bellvue, Stout and Arkins. The stone was utilized for buildings and sidewalks in Fort Collins and eventually in Denver, Omaha, Topeka, Kansas City and for buildings at the 1893 Chicago Exposition.

 

1873: Marcus Coon built Agricultural Hotel at the corner of West Mountain Avenue and Maston Street. This was a large frame hotel. It was later purchased by D.M. Harris in 1877 and he changed the name to the Commercial Hotel. He later moved it to the corner of Walnut Street and North College Avenue.

 

1873: The Larimer County Board of Commissioners was petitioned by Fort Collins taxpayers to incorporate the town. This was completed and the board appointed trustees who were later elected to form the town’s first government. Officers included Benjamin Whedbee, Henry C. Peterson, G.G. Blake and W.S. Vescelius.

 

1874: An ordinance was passed which prohibited the granting of licenses for selling liquor. Sixty-eight citizens signed a petition in 1874 for the repeal of the ordinance. The trustees voted against the proposition. In 1875, the anti-liquor ordinance was repealed. T.J. Wilson was granted the first liquor license at a cost of $150. He purchased a good building for the saloon with an auditorium on the floor where the famous Hutchinson family, temperance supporters, performed in 1879

 

1874: William Stover, Billy Patterson and Henry C. Patterson supported the idea of having Fort Collins a “saloonless” town on a trial basis. The idea was opposed by Marcus Coon, owner of the Agricultural Hotel. In 1875, Fort Collins yielded to the practical and tried to limit the number and character of such an establishment by charging a high licensing fee.

 

1874: Mrs. and Mrs. A. K. Yount constructed the first brick bank at Linden and Jefferson. They opened the Yount Bank and money at that time commanded 2% interest per month. Yount, a member of the constitutional convention in Denver, employed Charles Sheldon to manage the bank in his absence. Yount was accidentally killed in 1876 and Mrs.Yount took over and ran the bank after her husband’s death.

 

1874: The town boasted four hotels – The Agricultural on Mountain and Mason, The Collins House and the National on Jefferson Street and the Blake House.

 

1874: An unprecedented administrative system developed in response to a water dispute between the towns of Fort Collins and Greeley.

 

1874: Joseph Mason built a livery stable on Jefferson Street. Liveries were considered prestigious operations supplying settlers with horses for every need from farming to racing.

 

1875: Population was estimated at 500 people.

 

1875: A character known as Rocky Mountain Jim was shot in Estes Park by one of the Earl of Dunraven’s employees in a battle over a land claim. Jim ultimately died of his injuries at the Collins House, then kept by Alderman T.L. Moore. Before his death, Rocky Mountain Jim gave Mrs. Moore a very beautiful topaz in the rough which he found in Estes Park. Mr. Moore had the topaz polished and made into settings for a ring some bosom studs, the ring setting being very beautiful and a valuable keepsake. Mr. Moore refused $20 for this one setting alone.

 

1875: The Forks Hotel on Highway 287 at the Livermore Road was built by Robert O. Roberts came here in 1874, on 160 acres of land he bought after operating the Fisk Hotel at Livermore.

 

1875: A toll road to Estes Park was completed.

 

1875: The first service of the First United Presbyterian Church in Loveland ws held in the old Weldon log school house.

 

1876: Calamity Jane left Fort Collins, died the following month in South Dakota.

 

1876: During the first State Legislature, Harris Stratton of Fort Collins, who had been elected Sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, drafted the bill creating the State Board of Agriculture as the governing board of the Colorado College of Agriculture. The bill was passed in 1877.

 

1876: Joseph S. McClelland, who found the Larimer County Express, planted the first commercial orchard in northern Colorado at his farm on the north side of Fossil Creek south of Fort Collins. He gradually increased his planting to more than 100 acres and ad the growing of every kind of fruit suitable to the temperate zone, as well as nut trees and shade trees. His orchard was a real testing ground for the northern portion of the state.

 

1877: Louis Dauth, a German Veteran of the Franco-Prussian War, opened a bakery on Linden. A few years later he retired to Denver.

 

1877: Before this year, residents of Fort Collins hauled their water supply from the Poudre Rockets and barrels. In this year, Ralph Coyte began service by carrying water to homes in a barrel mounted on a travois hauled by a mule. He was paid by the bucketful. A little later another man used a water wagon drawn by horses or mules for the service, charging 25 cents for a barrel or five cents for a bucketful.

1878: Bolivar S. Tedmon and his wife first arrived in Fort Collins. Two years later they built the famous Tedmon House. The Tedmon House was started in 1879 and completed in the early part of 1880. It was the largest and nicest hotel north of Denver at time. It had 84 rooms, was 3 stories high and faced south on the corner of Jefferson and Linden Streets. The Tedmons ran the hotel for a year and then sold it to George S. Brown. A laundry was located in a log building back of the hotel.

 

1878: The Reverend Joseph P. Machebeuf celebrated the first Catholic Mass within the city limits of Fort Collins. Previously masses had been celebrated in private homes north of town. This service, by the pioneer bishop of Colorado, was conducted in the Old Grout building.

 

1878: The cornerstone for Old Main was laid. Construction was completed in 1879.

 

1878: Antoine Janis, who staked out the first squatter’s land claim in Larimer County, moved with his Indian wife to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

 

1878: Fort Collins’ Population – 1,200

 

1879: Bolivar S. Tedmon and his wife came to Fort Collins in 1878 and in 1879 he took over the management of the Metropolitan House from Auntie Stone who retired at the age of 78 from the hotel business. Mrs. Tedmon had a millinery shop on Linden where she trimmed hats and bonnets to order at short notice in the latest styles and at a reasonable cost. She also ordered goods, patterns and magazines from the East for the ladies in Fort Collins.

 

1879: A jail or “cooler” was built for unruly characters. It was said that the building did not be much use because Fort Collins citizens were simply “not that kind of people.”

 

1879: Charles Pennock homestead on the road between Bellvue and Horsetooth and planted many, many fruit trees.

 

1879: Wooden sidewalks were placed at the storefronts on Jefferson and Linden, complete with a roof and pillars and a green and white striped awning. These were replaced in the 1880’s by stone from the quarries at Stout. “Stout” was first stamped on the quarry scene. A month before the first stone train left the valley, the important Nebraska stone contractor, William H.M. Stout, leased the railroad quarries.

 

1879: A school building was erected by J. W. Jordan of Cheyenne. Water closets (bathrooms) were installed in 1891 when sewer connections were made available.

 

1879: The Larimer and Weld Canal construction began by Benjamin Eaton and Associates. It tapped the river about 2 miles northwest of Fort Collns

 

1879: First official mayor of Fort Collins named – Benjamin Whedbee

1880: Fort Collins fire department was organized.

 

1880: Montezuma Fuller, age 22, came to Fort Collins and became one of our best architects in the late 1800’s. He was responsible for the Trimble and Avery Block and was architect to 10 churches in Larimer County.

 

1880: Fort Collins’ Population – 1,376

 

1880: Town lots were selling at $500 to $800. Early in 1879 They were being offered at $50 to $75.

 

1880: S.B. Stewart, acting for the cache LaPoudre and North Park Toll Road Company, completed a wagon road along the Poudre River from Pingree Hill to Chambers Lake. Tad was extended in 1881 to the mining settlement of Teller.

 

1880: The Loomis House at 405 Remington Street was built for Abner Loomis, a pioneer famed Fort Collins businessman. He also built the Linden Hotel and was president of the Poudre Valley Bank.

 

1880: The town of Berthoud was platted by Peter Turner on land he had purchased on the north bank of the Little Thompson Creek. The town was named for Captain E.L. Berthoud, the engineer who surveyed the Colorado Central Railroad line.

 

1880: Loveland’s first newspaper, The Reporter, was founded by G.N. Udell. He soon sold it to Frank A. McClelland, son of Joseph S. McClelland, founder of the Fort Collins Express.

 

1881: Franklin C. Avery, N.C. Alford and Associates formed the Larimer County Ditch Comto take water from the north side of the Poudre River to irrigate bluff lands north of the Eaton Ditch and eastward 100 miles into Weld County. After various changes, the company’s assets were taken over and expanded by the present Water Supply and Storage Company.

 

1881: In 1881 the First Baptist Church of Fort Collins received its charter, with five charter members. The congregation’s first permanent building was erected at Remington and Olive Streets. A larger building, of local gray sandstone and castellated architectural styles dedicated in 1904 and served the congregation until its present church building on East Lake Street was dedicated in 1966.

 

1881: Franklin Avery starts Larimer County Bank in the Welch Building (later called the First National Bank of Fort Collins). In 1898 the paper reported that the bank had “one of the best burglar-proof safes and fire-proof vaults.”

 

1882: Fort Collins approved a water works system and builds the Municipal water plant.

 

1882: The census by the Town Board gave Fort Collins a population of 236 families, 220 dwellings, 1,150 males and 884 females. Fort Collins was proclaimed a
“City of the Second Class” as a result of the census.

1882: Abner Loomis and Charles B. Andrews built the Loomis Block at Walnut and Linden Streets. The second and third stories housed the Linden Hotel, the ground floor was occupied by the Poudre Valley Bank and the Fort Collins post office.

 

1882: Old Grout was torn down to make room for Frank P. Stover’s drug store. The building had been built of grout, a type of concrete, in 1865 by Joseph Mason and Major Asaph Allen as a sutler’s store, providing goods for the soldiers at the fort across Jefferson Street.

 

1882: Fort Collins first city hall, with belfry and bell, was built on Walnut Street. It housed the fire station on the first floor and city offices on the second floor. The bell was used to sound alarms of fire for both the volunteer and, after 1913, the paid fire department.

 

1882: “Stout” was first stamped on the quarry scene. A month before the first train left the valley, the Nebraska stone contractor, William H.B. Stout, leased the railroad quarries. Charles Smith erected a frame schoolhouse, furnished it, supplied books and petitioned for a school district. Two miles farther south of the schoolhouse, 25 carpenters worked to complete a depot, a section house and a water tank connected to a 2,000-barrel reservoir. The boarding house was also the first Stout Post Office, opening in September. It had 21 rooms on two floors. The main operator at the Stout Quarry was the Union Pacific Railroad, which kept a workforce of around 200 workers. Much stone was going to build bridges, stations and roundhouses on the Union Pacific’s new line through Oregon called the Oregon Short Line.

 

1883: Dr. Ethan Allen Lee arrived in Fort Collins. He vaccinated the quarry workers from Stout for smallpox, making house calls in his horse and buggy. He was town physician in 1889 and also served as Fort Collins’ 9th mayor.

 

1883: Nina Ingersoll, daughter of Dr. Charles L. Ingersoll, President of CAC, became ill with what physicians diagnosed as scarlet fever. Several similar cases were soon reported, leading to a noisy dispute among local physicans about the diagnosis and treatment of the illness.

 

1883: The first veterinary surgeon was appointed. His appointment was due to the livestock and cattle business that was doing so well in Fort Collins.

 

1883: The firehouse bell was rung vigorously and the whistles of two locomotives standing near the railroad depot reinforced the alarm. The town’s volunteer firemen wee summoned thus to Chlore Foster’s place on LaPorte Avenue. The Express said, “The character of the place is well known. Chloe’s companion charged that the fire had been set by fanatic moralists anxious to rid the town of such a place.”

 

1884 :”Free Reading Room”, a forerunner of the library, was set up next door to the fire department on Walnut Street.

 

1884: John Zimmerman, a native of Switzerland, moved his family from a previous location at Cameron Pass to a cabin on the north side of Poudre Canyon, nearly opposite the later site of the Keystone Hotel, which he built. The area was also known as Zimmerman’s.

 

1884: The City Council, by a vote of 6 to 2, adopted an ordinance prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors in the city. Detailed provisions were made for control of drug stores selling intoxicants.

 

1885: William Campton, a farmer from Iowa, arrived in Colorado and a year later was runningle in Fort Collins. He later bought land in the St. Cloud area 40 miles northwest of Fort Collins and established the Cherokee Park summer resort, which was patronized by locals and tourists alike.

 

1886: Electric plant is built.

 

1886: Taxpayers of School District No. 5 (Fort Collins) voted for a bond issue of $19,500 for a new school. For several years the district had rented rooms on Mountain Avenue and Jefferson Street to accommodate grades that could not find space in the Remington School at East Olive and Remington Streets. The 8-room Franklin School was built on West Mountain and Howes Street (present site of Steeles market). The new school opened in September, 1887.

 

1886: The Linden (later Lindell) flour mill was destroyed by fire. It had been built in 1868 by Auntie Stone and Henry Clay Peterson. It was the second such mill to be built in northern Colorado. In the late 1860s the growing of wheat crops had greatly increased Larimer County as the result of irrigation, resulting in a growing demand for milling facilities.

 

1887: John M. Hoffman came to Fort Collins. He worked first as a miller for B.F. Hottel and later started his own mill.

 

1887: Land one mile and a half west of the city was purchased from Thomas Connolly for $50 per acre. Grandview Cemetery was located in an area having abundant water rights from Pleasant valley and lake canals. A 40-acre tract was immediately laid out by landscape gardeners for cemetery purposes.

 

1888: First and only lynching in Fort Collins.

 

1888: Construction of the city’s first sewer line was ordered by the city council. Costing $3,500 it extended from a point on the Poudre River west along Mountain Avenue to the alley west of Howes Street. It was extended in 1891 and 1893 and by 1910 the city’s sewer system totaled 19 1/4 miles of pipeline. This first sewer relieved swampy conditions on Mountain and Laporte Avenues, caused by seepage from the Arthur (Town) ditch during the irrigating season.

 

1888: In response to passage by Congress of the 1887 Hatch Act, the Colorado Experiment Station was organized in connection with Colorado Agricultural College, one of the nation’s land grant colleges. The station was required to conduct original investigations on farm crops and other problems or verify studies beneficial to agriculture. It was required to publish bulletins on results of experimental work and to report to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Substations were established at MonteVista and Rocky Ford.

 

A further result of the 1887 Hatch Act at Colorado Agricultural College was the establishment of a master’s degree program for students of agricultural subjects. This was in part to the need of Experiment Station specialists for student assistants.

1888: The Miller Block at 162 Linden Street was built by Frank C. Miller, Sr. The large stone building was constructed in two parts. Everything from the Miller Block sign at the top and to the left (north) was constructed first. The rest followed in 1891. In back was a 2-story outhouse. 

 

1888: Construction of a creamery and cheese factory in Fort Collins proved an important source of income for farmers and workmen.

 

1889: A four-year high school was located on the second floor of the Franklin School. Prior to the establishment of a high school, students desiring a high school diploma had to go through a preparatory program at the agricultural college. The high school was used as the high school until 1906. The new high school was built in 1906 at a cost of $50,000. It was located on the corner of Mulberry and Meldrum.

 

1889: First bakery opened in Fort Collins by Albert Damm, a German immigrant.

 

1889: The McHugh House at 202 Remington Street was completed by Charles B. Andrews after it had been started in 1885 by Lars Kemoe, a stone mason. Andrews hired Montezuma Fuller, a builder and architect, to complete the structure. It was later occupied by two Fort Collins’ mayors – Dr. P.J. McHugh and Jesse Harris.

 

1889: Grandview Cemetery established. The land had been purchased just two years prior by the Town.

 

1890: The census showed Fort Collins had a population of 2,053 persons, a gain of only 42 people in the preceding decade. The main reason for the lack of growth was that farmers were not doing well due to the decline in the price of wheat, alfalfa and other crops and repeated over cropping of their acres.

 

1890: An ordinance made it compulsory to lay sidewalks in Fort Collins.

 

1891: The Australian or secret ballot was first tried in Fort Collins. It had been introduced in the United States from South Australia in 1888.

 

1891: The first jukebox came to Fort Collins in A. W. Scott’s drugstore – cost 5 cents per song.

 

1893: The Colorado Telephone Company was granted a franchise by the Fort Collins city council to build a line connecting the city with Denver and other Colorado cities. Joseph R. Wills was the first local manager and there were about 50 other telephone subscribers.

 

1893: Colorado voted to grant Women’s Suffrage – 35,968 for and 29,461 against. First registered woman voter in Colorado was Eliza Routt, wife of the Governor.

 

1893: First telephone toll line installed from Denver – Greeley to Fort Collins

 

1880: At the behest of Judge Jay Bouton, the legislature passed an act establishing kindergarten in the state’s schools. The typical teacher, if experienced, was paid $70 to $75 a month

 

1894: Colorado law made it illegal to sell or give cigarettes to anyone under the age of 16. Judge Jay Bouton, President of the School Board, announced that the Board would pay $5 for information leading to the conviction of anyone violating the statute.

 

1894: The Fort Collins Board of Education charged 10 cents for admission to the high school commencement exercises. Proceeds were to go to the school’s library fund.

 

1895: Theodosia Ammons, a local activist in the woman’s suffrage movement, became Dean and was founder of the Domestic Science Department at CAC.

 

1895: Auntie Stone died.

 

1895: Judge Jay Bouton moved into his new home at 113 North Sherwood. Total cost was $6,000.

 

1896: A belfry was added to the rear of the Walnut Street City Hall. This 60 foot tower also served as a place for drying hoses.

 

1896: Charles Lochte opened a new barber shop on College Avenue. Charles had joined the Cuban army in revolt against the Spanish rule, and had been taken prisoner by the Spaniards. He had tales to tell of Spanish cruelties against the Cubans.

 

1896: The U.S. Post Office Department began its Rural Free Delivery System bringing mail directly to rural and farm homes.

 

1896 – Sale of alcohol banned in the city limits (repealed in 1969).

 

1896: A three-story brick hotel was built by the Zimmermans. The family did most of the building themselves, even to making the bricks. There were 40 rooms. A great many easterners came and spent the entire summer. All of the Zimmermans were talented musicians and in the evenings they often formed an orchestra for the dances. This hotel was among the first summer resorts in the area to have running hot and cold water in the bedrooms and several bathrooms.

 

1897: City Council passed a curfew law requiring children under the age of 17 to be off the streets between 8 PM and 6 AM daily. Onset of curfew was signaled by 10 taps on the firehouse bell. Fines for violation were $1, $10 or for careless parents $25.

 

1897: The horse was still the king of family transportation. Automobiles were just coming into being. Fort Collins’ monument to the equine industry was a redstone found, first erected at Mountain and College Avenues. With the laying of street car tracks, the fountain was moved to a site on East Mountain Avenue. After two additional moves in Library park, it now rests in front of the Fort Collins Museum.

1897: The First National Bank occupied its new quarters in the Avery Block, a flat-iron shaped redstone building at the corner of North College Avenue and Linden Street. The building was designed by Montezuma Fuller.

 

1898: Justice Mandeville’s court had been the scene of many interesting receptions. Joseph Croke, who had been running a speak easy on College Avenue, where the bibulous could quench their consuming thirst, had four complaints lodged against him, charging him with violating the liquor laws. While out hunting for bondsmen, Croke took leg bail and skipped for Denver.

 

1898: William Lindemeier urged the propriety of petitioning the legislature to appropriate mo make the present bounty laws relating to the killing of coyotes, wolves and mountain lions operative.

 

1898: Dr. Suela E. Clark was a surgeon dentist in Fort Collins who was considered a pioneer dentist. However, he did have a reputation of being a little off-color and his splendid social qualities led him into bibulous habits, which caused him to absent himself from his office and to neglect his profession. However, he eventually gave up the cup that inebriates and turned over a new leaf. He was also unique in that he owned the first bicycle in Fort Collins.

 

1899: A Fort Collins City Library Association was formed. Its initial inventory of about 800 books was given by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Reverend George N. Falconer of the Unitarian church. The first library occupied rooms in the Welch Block.

 

1899: With resumption of intercollegiate football, student volunteers at Colorado Agricultural College removed an orchard of dying walnuts trees and filled in a cattail marsh to create Durkee Field. The site is now occupied by the field house on College Avenue

 

1900: Fort Collins’ Population – 3,500

 

1900: The Fort Collins City Council prohibited the practice of mesmerism and hypnotism in the city.

 

1900: First light plant built for William Miner at present location of Toliver and Kinney Mercantile Company

 

1901: Colorado A&M makes one of its first purchases for a foothills campus – a 40-acre tract of land west of Fort Collins that cost $400.

 

1901: The first sugar factory in Larimer county was built in Loveland by the Great Western Sugar Company at a cost of $1 million.

 

1901: A city carrier service was instituted by the Fort Collins Post Office. The offices annual receipts had exceeded $10,000. Three mail carriers were employed.

 

1901: At the insistence of Charles R. Jones, a college band was formed at Colorado Agricultural College. This was followed by formation of an orchestra and a glee club. Jones was later to become a professor of zoology and entomology and was bandmaster for many years.

 

1901: An electric lighting system was installed in Loveland by the Loveland Light, Heat and Power Company. That firm was succeeded in 1907 by the Northern Colorado Power Company, supplied from its power plant at Lafayette.

 

1901: Catholic congregation moved into the Gothic Revival Church at 308 W. Mountain.

 

1901: The State Board of Agriculture and the faculty acted to modify a long-standing rule requiring male students to work on the farm at Colorado Agricultural College. The state had, in organizing the college in 1877, included that requirement.

 

1902: First car in Northern Colorado – a 1902 Oldsmobile owned by Judge Mack Mills.

 

1902: Livery stables had not been replaced by automobile dealers, garages and gasoline station in Fort Collins. The 1902 city directory lists the Mansion stables at 302 Jefferson Street, the Sterick bar at 363 Jefferson and Mountain Avenue stables at 127 to 131 East Mountain Avenue. They were strategically located within walking distance of the Tedmon Hotel at Linden and Jefferson Streets so that travelers would have a place to leave their horses.

 

1902: Dr. Glover, Fort Collins’ Food Inspector requested that all bread baked in the local bakeries be wrapped. Damm’s Bakery and Confectionery at 133 South College boasteey were “the first bakery in the State of Colorado to wrap their bread.” They also claimed that they were the first to employ an automobile delivery service which, according to their ad, “does away with the filthy handling of lines by a careless driver.”

 

1902: Fort Collins’ Population – 3,000