Fort Collins in 1876
What Life Was Like When Colorado Became a State
On August 1, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado as the 38th state.
That is how Colorado became the Centennial State, joining the Union in the nation’s centennial year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
For modern Fort Collins residents, it is tempting to picture the occasion with flags flying along College Avenue, (put up by the Downtown Club of Fort Collins no doubt), crowds celebrating in Old Town and perhaps a commemorative craft beer brewed for the occasion.
There was just one problem. Most of the Fort Collins we recognize today did not exist yet.
There was no Colorado State University campus full of students. No railroad came through town. The Avery House had not been built. College Avenue was not lined with restaurants and shops, and much of the land east of town was still open prairie.
Fort Collins was young, isolated and struggling through several very difficult years.
It was also beginning to place some remarkably successful bets on its future.
Colorado Was New. This Place Was Not.
Colorado became a state in 1876, but the history of the Cache la Poudre Valley reaches back thousands of years.
The area that now makes up Larimer County has been inhabited for at least 12,000 years. The Ute, Lakota, Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho, Pawnee, Shoshone and Cheyenne were among the Indigenous peoples connected to the region over time. The Poudre Valley was an important hunting and camping area, particularly for the Arapaho and Cheyenne during the 1800s.
By the time Colorado achieved statehood, settlement had dramatically changed the valley. Native communities had been displaced, buffalo herds had been decimated and farms, irrigation ditches and permanent towns were spreading across Northern Colorado.
Fort Collins itself began as a military post in 1864. The Army abandoned the fort only three years later, leaving civilians to determine what might become of the small settlement beside the river.
In 1868, Fort Collins became the Larimer County seat. In 1873, local taxpayers successfully petitioned to create a town government.
Only 23 votes were cast in the first town election.
Democracy was apparently a more intimate experience when nearly everyone at the polling place probably knew where everyone else lived.
A Town Split in Two
One of the most interesting things about Fort Collins in 1876 is that the community was already arguing about growth and development.
Some traditions really do have deep roots.
The original settlement had been laid out parallel to the Cache la Poudre River. This created the angled streets still visible in parts of Old Town.
When the Fort Collins Agricultural Colony arrived in 1872, its developers laid out a second townsite according to the compass. Those streets ran north-south and east-west.
The difference created more than an unusual street grid. It created two competing business districts.
“Old Town” centered around Jefferson and Linden streets. “New Town” grew around College and Mountain avenues. When businessman Benjamin Whedbee moved his store from the old district to the new one, the move helped ignite a feud that lasted for years.
Businesses, newspapers and political factions took sides. According to the Fort Collins historical record, proposals that might have benefited the entire community were sometimes opposed simply because the other side supported them.
The disagreement eventually faded, but its outline remains on the map. The point where the angled streets meet the compass-aligned streets is a physical record of two groups trying to decide where Fort Collins’ future belonged.
The Town Had Big Plans and Very Bad Timing
The Agricultural Colony brought hundreds of new residents to Fort Collins. People described as being of “good moral character” could purchase membership certificates that entitled them to town lots or nearby farmland.
The newcomers started businesses, built homes, dug irrigation ditches and created a local government.
Then the national economy collapsed.
The Panic of 1873 led to bank and business failures throughout the country. Fort Collins’ first bank failed, and many local residents lost their money.
That same year, grasshoppers descended on Northern Colorado.
The insects destroyed crops for three consecutive years. Farming families who depended on those crops were left with little produce to sell, or even barter for other necessities. Some residents gave up and moved elsewhere.
The grasshopper plagues continued through 1876.
So, while the rest of the country celebrated its centennial and Colorado celebrated statehood, Fort Collins farmers were also keeping a nervous eye on the sky and hoping not to see another swarm approaching.
A correspondent for the Rocky Mountain News described Fort Collins in 1876 as little more than “a few straggling wooden buildings” and its well-known grout corner.
It was not exactly a glowing relocation advertisement.
What Would You Have Found in Town?
Fort Collins may have been small, but it was not empty.
By 1874, the town had four hotels. There were general stores, a drugstore, a law office, blacksmiths, mills, churches, a school, a newspaper, a bank and livery stables.
Horses were central to daily life. They pulled wagons, worked farms, carried riders and provided the transportation needed to connect scattered homes and businesses. A successful livery stable was both a transportation center and a sign of prosperity.
The Larimer County Express, established in 1873, was the county’s first newspaper. Its original four-page edition reportedly contained local business announcements, poems and a humor column called “Expressive.”
Apparently, questionable newspaper humor also has deep roots.
The newspaper was particularly important because mail service could be unreliable, telephones had not arrived and the railroad was still a year away.
Fort Collins had initially prohibited liquor licenses in the early 1870s, reflecting the Agricultural Colony’s moral aspirations. After petitions, debate and a failed attempt to repeal the rule, the town finally issued its first liquor license in 1875 for $150.
By Colorado’s statehood year, Fort Collins had officially discovered that community ideals and community thirst do not always agree.
College Avenue Had a Name, but Not Much of a College
Colorado State University traces its founding to 1870, when the territorial legislature established the Agricultural College of Colorado in Fort Collins.
In 1876, however, the college existed more as an idea than an active campus.
A small “claim building” had been constructed in 1874 to help secure Fort Collins’ right to the college, but no classes had begun. Old Main’s cornerstone would not be laid until 1878, and the college would not officially open until 1879.
That means Colorado became a state before its future land-grant university had taught a single class.
Creating an agricultural college in a dry region that outsiders sometimes dismissed as part of the “Great American Desert” struck some people as an odd idea. Local leaders saw something different. They believed farming, irrigation, education and experimentation could build a lasting economy.
They were right, although the payoff required patience.
The First Commercial Orchard Took Root
One small but hopeful event occurred in 1876.
Joseph S. McClelland planted what the Fort Collins historical record identifies as the area’s first commercial fruit orchard. The orchard became both a business and a testing ground for determining which fruits could grow successfully in Northern Colorado.
That experiment captured the broader spirit of Fort Collins at the time.
Settlers were learning how to farm in a dry climate largely through trial and error. Irrigation made cultivation possible, but water availability, weather, insects and access to markets could determine whether a family prospered or failed.
Planting an orchard meant believing that you would still be there years later to harvest it.
Fort Collins in 1876 was full of people making that kind of bet.
Imagine Buying a Fort Collins Lot for Only a Few Dollars
Historical accounts suggest that some vacant lots in the eastern part of town could be purchased for surprisingly little by modern standards.
Before anyone begins regretting not buying Fort Collins real estate 150 years ago, the deal came with a few complications.
Roads, public services, transportation and modern utilities were either rudimentary or nonexistent. Building materials could be difficult and expensive to obtain. A buyer might have owned land, but turning it into a comfortable home required money, labor, horses, tools and a willingness to endure Northern Colorado weather without central heating or air conditioning.
Cheap real estate is often cheap for a reason, even in 1876.
The Railroad Was Still One Year Away
The event that changed Fort Collins most dramatically was not statehood itself. It was the arrival of the Colorado Central Railroad in 1877.
Before the railroad, moving people, crops, livestock, mail and manufactured goods was slow and costly. Fort Collins remained geographically and economically isolated.
Town leaders were so concerned that the railroad might bypass the community that they granted it a right-of-way along Mason Street. The first train entered Fort Collins on October 17, 1877.
Rail service gave farmers and ranchers access to distant markets. Merchants could receive better products more quickly and at lower cost. News, visitors, workers and investment could reach Fort Collins with far less difficulty.
Within a few years, the town began to look much more permanent.
Old Main opened. The Avery House was built. New commercial buildings appeared. The population reached 1,356 by the 1880 census.
Fort Collins was finally connected to the rest of the country.
The Fort Collins Personality Was Already Forming
If we could walk through Fort Collins in 1876, the town would feel almost unrecognizable. But some very familiar characteristics were already present.
Residents debated how and where the community should grow. Business owners competed for the best locations. Farmers worried about water and weather. Local leaders promoted education as an economic engine. Newcomers arrived hoping to build something better, while others wondered whether the town had much of a future at all.
Fort Collins was not yet the thriving city it would become. It was a small collection of homes, businesses, barns, mills and ambitious plans sitting beside the Poudre River.
Colorado statehood did not magically solve its problems. The grasshoppers still had to leave. The economy still had to recover. The railroad still had to arrive, and the college still had to open.
But the pieces were beginning to come together.
The residents of Fort Collins in 1876 could not have imagined breweries, bike trails, research laboratories, packed football games or homes selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What they did understand was that a community is built by people willing to plant orchards before they can be certain there will ever be a harvest.
One hundred and fifty years later, we are living in the city that grew from those early bets.
Written by Nathan Weinland, leader of the Weinland Team at RE/MAX Alliance
Phone: (970) 690-4088
Email: Sales@TheWeinlandTeam.com
Written by fortcollinsexperience
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