History
In 1836, a group of French-speaking fur trappers in the employ of John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company traveled heavily-laden with wagonloads of supplies into modern-day Larimer County, Colorado, on their way to a rendezvous on the banks of the Green River in Wyoming. When they arrived at the Poudre River, it was nearly dark – too late in the day to attempt to ford the river. They awoke in the morning under a layer of snow from an early storm. They were trapped for more than a week and finally decided that they would not be able to move on unless they significantly lightened their load of cargo. They dug a large pit, lined it carefully with pelts and tree branches and buried everything they could not take with them, including several hundred pounds of gunpowder. In the Spring, some members of the original party returned to the spot and retrieved all of the concealed items. They called the place, and eventually the river, Cache la Poudre, French for “Hide the powder”.
Fort Collins was, as the name implies, first an army installation. A small army camp further up the Poudre River, Camp Collins, was destroyed in a flood in June 1864. The local Commander wrote to his superior, Colonel Collins at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, suggesting a more favorable spot to re-build. Fort Collins was built as suggested. It never had the reinforced walls popularly associated with the image of a frontier army fort. When the army decommissioned the camp in 1868, a small settlement remained on the banks of the Poudre River and eventually built a city center, today’s Old Town neighborhood over the remains of he old fort . The City of Fort Collins was founded in 1873, about the same time the railroad came through. The charming Old Town area dates from the city’s early days as a thriving railroad town. Many visitors enjoy the wonderful, self-guided, historic walking tours of this nineteenth century city center, which is now a vibrant arts, culture and retail area with abundant high-quality, interesting and affordable restaurants catering to the informal lives of students and families.