Fort Collins history in places you can still visit

Fort Collins keeps its history close to the surface. The river that shaped it still runs past the old fort site, the town's surveyor still has his house on Mountain Avenue, and on a winter Saturday you can walk from a 1933 café to a firehouse full of books. Here is the story, place by place.

Before the fort

The City of Fort Collins recognizes the land as the homeland of the Hinono'eiteen (Arapaho) and Tsétsėhéstȧhese (Cheyenne), with ties to the Ute, Lakota, Shoshone, Comanche, Kiowa and Pawnee as well. The 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty recognized Arapaho and Cheyenne territory that included this area, but settlers ignored it, and the 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise shrank it to a small area near Big Sandy Creek in southeastern Colorado.

An Arapaho band led by Warshinun, known to settlers as Friday, camped along the Poudre in the 1860s, near the mouth of Dry Creek and near today's Lemay and Mulberry. Warshinun proposed a reservation on the river, but settlers opposed it and none was created. After the fort closed, some of his people went to Oklahoma, and others settled on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation in 1878. The City notes that Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute people still live in or visit the area, and that the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery holds an 1869 portrait of Warshinun.

A camp, a flood and a town

In July 1862, soldiers were posted near Laporte to guard the Overland Stage route, at a camp named for Lieutenant Colonel William O. Collins. A flood on the Cache la Poudre destroyed it on June 9, 1864, and that August Collins approved a new site near today's Willow Street. The Fort Collins Historical Society celebrates August 20, 1864, the date of his order, as the town's birthday. The post was abandoned in 1866.

Settlers who stayed built Old Town along the river. In 1872 the Agricultural Colony arrived to buy land and plat a town, Fort Collins was incorporated on February 3, 1873, the railroad reached Mason Street in 1877 and Colorado Agricultural College, now Colorado State University, opened in the fall of 1879, according to the Fort Collins History Connection.

Landmarks you can visit

The Avery House. Franklin Avery surveyed the town in 1873 and gave it its wide streets. In 1879 he and his wife Sara built a sandstone house at Mountain Avenue and Meldrum Street. The City owns it and the Poudre Landmarks Foundation cares for it; check the foundation's site for visiting.

The Water Works. Out on North Overland Trail in the foothills, the 1883 Water Works was the city's first public works project, a Gothic Revival pump house fed by a canal from the Poudre. It became a City landmark in 1971, and a 2025 project added new interpretive signs. The Poudre Landmarks Foundation looks after it with the Friends of the Water Works; check the foundation for visiting.

Old Town. City Council made Old Town a local historic district in 1979, a year after its National Register listing, and its blocks hold the Linden Hotel, the Northern Hotel and the Avery Block. At 218 Walnut Street, Silver Grill Cafe has served breakfast and lunch since October 28, 1933, when Flossie Widger opened it during the Depression; later owners joined five historic storefronts into its dining rooms, and painted brick signs from 1913 and 1922 still show on its walls. A few doors down, Old Firehouse Books, which began in 1980 as the Book Rack, has filled the historic firehouse with new and used books since 2009.

The Tres Colonias. Across the river, Buckingham, Andersonville and Alta Vista grew up from 1902 to 1923 as housing for sugar factory workers, first Germans from Russia and later Hispanic families. The Museo de las Tres Colonias, an adobe house museum, opens by request for tours and school visits, with free admission.

Traditions that carry the story

Some of the city's habits are history in motion. Since 1984, volunteers of the Fort Collins Municipal Railway Society have run a restored Birney streetcar between City Park and Old Town on summer weekends and holidays. Each November the City, the Downtown Development Authority and the Downtown General Improvement District light the trees of Old Town, and the lights stay on into mid-February. The Downtown First Friday Art Walk opens galleries and shops on the first Friday of each month.

Where to learn more

The Fort Collins History Connection, built by the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery and Poudre Libraries, holds the timeline, photographs and the stories behind local legends, including how Old Town helped inspire Disneyland's Main Street. The museum on Mason Court, which opened at its current site in 2012, keeps the archive, by appointment, and a Heritage Courtyard of four historic buildings. The City's Historic Preservation office publishes a Historic Resources Map and its Full Story Fort Collins series, and the Poudre Landmarks Foundation offers a self-guided historic walking tour.