In earlier posts, we’ve worked our way up the Poudre Canyon from Ted’s place through the Keystone Hotel. Now we are in the upper canyon, the air is crisper – and colder in the winter – and the resorts are farther apart. The Kinikinik Resort is the next one of the early resorts. It is located between mileposts 81 and 82.
The resort got its start as a ranch around 1885. It was owned by Charles Andrews and he raised Shetland ponies for the British market. The unusual name may have come from the Native American word for an indigenous, low, creeping evergreen plant. It is one of the longest place-name palindromes in the English language.
Captain Charles Williams, who served in the Colorado National Guard, took over the ranch in 1901. Because Williams loved fishing and hosting guests more than ranching, he built a store and guest cabins and a new resort was established, sometime in the 1920s, on the south side of the canyon road. Williams ran the resort until he died in 1940.
Below is a series of photographs of the resort, from 1932 through today.
This is the earliest image I have of the Kinikinik Store. It is postmarked 1932. On the back of he postcard is this note:
“Dear Mamma. This is where we stayed on our fishing trip. No luck catching fish, but it was fun just to be up in the mountains. Love Patti & Lee”
Fishing at Kinikinik, dated 1939.
Sometimes guests had much better fishing luck, as shown on this family photograph dated 1939. Their catch, if I counted right, is around 60 fish, arrayed on the Kinikinik Resort car. Their slogan is “Where Hospitality is Religion.”
Kinikinik Store, with Gas Pump, c1945. Photograph by Mark Miller.Kinikinik Store and Cabins, dated 1947. Photograph by Mark Miller.
These two photographs, by Mark Miller, show the Kinikinik Resort at a peak period. They sold Conoco gas and supplies and had advertising signs for Coco Cola, Dairy Gold Ice Cream, cold drinks and sandwiches.
Kinikinik Store and Cabin, dated 1958.
In 1958, the Kinikinik Resort was obviously still doing well. The signage included advertisements for Coca Cola, Pepsi, Orange Crush, and Poudre Valley Ice Cream. The back of the postcard has a short note that, in part, says, “completely surrounded by many high mountains, so beautiful here.” And, of course, it was.
The resort flourished until the early 1960s but, as shown below, is now closed and badly deteriorated.
Kinikinik Store, November 1, 2019. Photograph by M. E. McNeill.
Barbara Fleming and I have written about Kinikinik in two books and in an article for Colorado History Magazine. We’ve had a chance to research it thoroughly. Rather than ending with this dismal scene, I’d like to end with a dream that might have been.
Williams, at one point, had much grander ideas for Kinikinik. Stanley Case, the author of the bible of the Poudre Canyon, The Poudre: A Photo History, found a 1915 architect’s sketch of a promotional advertisement produced by Williams. It showed the Roaring Forks Hotel, a 150-room dream for Kinikinik that never materialized. Still, it is nice to know that Captain Williams dreamed big.
Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, football was catching on at Colorado Agricultural College. In 1912, some students and faculty proposed a new football field, which would be sodded with grass, a revelation in the regional football conference. In May 1912, students were given a one-day holiday to plow and seed the new field. It was called Colorado Field and was located at the north end of what is now the Jack Christensen Track (northwest corner of Pitkin Street and College Avenue). The field was ready by the start of the 1912 season and was the envy of the conference. The field included a 1,000-seat steel grandstand that was replaced by a much larger grandstand in 1921.
New Grandstand C.A.C. Fort Collins, 1921. Real Photo Postcard by Sanborn
The new grandstand, on the west side of the field, ran 100-yards, from goal post to goal post. According to articles in the 1921 Fort Collins Courier, the stands were 57-feet wide, with 22 rows and “giving each person fifteen inches . . . it [would] comfortably seat 4,808 people.”
Fans entered under the stands, on the north end, and proceeded to their seats from below. The area beneath the stands also housed a row of concession stands and “two spacious toilets.” The press box, at the top of the stands, was said to comfortably seat 15 reporters.
New Grandstand C.A.C. Fort Collins, 1921, Center Enlargement
The players entered the field at ground level from the middle of the grandstand, I assume through the man door that can be seen, on the right side of this enlargement.
The new grandstand was used for the first time on October 1, 1921 in a game against the Wyoming Cowboys. The Aggies and Cowboys tied 7 to 7.
Over time Colorado Field received some upgrades, including seats on the east side of the field and, in 1948, lights for night games. Colorado Field was home to Aggie football until 1968 when Hughes Stadium opened. The grandstand stood until 1973,
The 1950s and 60s were a time of increasing cold war tension. In 1949 the Soviet had successfully detonated an atomic bomb, kicking off a nuclear arms race. One aspect of the race was a series of nine Atlas missile sites under the control of Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, WY. Five of the nine Atlas sites were in Northern Colorado.
Five former Atlas E complexes located north of Denver. Map by US Army Corp of Engineers, 2003.
Each site contained two underground structures: a missile launch and service facility, and the launch operations center. Each launch building contained one Atlas E missile, stored horizontally. The roof would be retracted and the missile elevated to a vertical position for launch. Site #13, located 3.5 miles from Bellvue, CO, was the closest site to Fort Collins.
The Atlas E missiles were 82 feet long, fueled by a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen, and designed to carry a nuclear warhead. (A more peaceful version of the Atlas E carried four Mercury astronauts into Earth orbit, including John Glenn.)
On July 12, 1961, the Atlas E missile for Site 13, named “The City of Fort Collins,” arrived in Fort Collins.
“Fort Collins Gets Look at its Missile.” Published August 3, 1961 by Denver newspaper.
The caption for the photograph reads as follows:
The mayor of Fort Collins made a token acceptance of this Atlas missile, named “City of Fort Collins,” in brief ceremonies when the giant ICBM stopped for a display while being moved to one of the nation’s launch complexes. Making the presentation was Col. William E. Todd, task force commander at Warren AFB in Wyoming.
The missile was trucked down College Avenue, accompanied by Warren AFB personnel and state police officers. It stopped on North Howes Street at 7:10 a.m., for a brief ceremony, and by 9:45 a.m., “The City of Fort Collins” resumed its journey to Site 13.
The development of a new missile system, the Minuteman Missile, made the Atlas sites obsolete and, in 1965, the launch sites were decommissioned, and the missiles removed. The sites were then sold to public and private buyers, with Site 13 now being used for record storage.
Below are two Fort Collins Archive photographs, an exterior view when the site was being constructed (c1961) and an interior taken when the sale process was underway (1966).
Exterior View of Warren Missile Silo Site near Laporte, Colorado, c1961. (Fort Collins Archive H24096)Interior View of Atlas Missile Storage Bunker During Ownership Transfer, March 23, 1966. (Fort Collins Archive C00557)
The 1960s were a different time. Today, it is hard to conceive of any situation that would lead to a weapons system ceremony in downtown Fort Collins.
If you have read my About Me page, you know I collect vintage images of Fort Collins and the surrounding area. The one place I go somewhat farther afield is with sugar beet photographs. I admit to a love affair with images of anything sugar beet related. In this area, I go beyond Larimer County and collect images of the 13 sugar beet facilities that are classified as Northern Colorado factories. I’ve shared images from three of these locations in the past, Fort Collins and Loveland, in separate posts on their sugar beet factories, and Windsor, CO, as part of a post on the town. (I’ve placed links to these posts at the end of this article.) In this post, I’m going to share my images of the Johnstown, CO facility.
Much of the information on the Johnstown facility comes from Footprints in the Sugar: A History of the Great Western Sugar Company, a behemoth of a book by Candy Hamilton.
In 1901, the Loveland sugar beet processing factory opened and many farmers, including those in Johnstown, were growing sugar beets. In the fall, beets had to be harvested, loaded into wagons, and transported to beet dumps for transfer to rail cars. Below are some photographs of the process in Johnstown, CO.
The note on the back of the postcard identifies the driver of the wagon, “Harry, this will look natural to you. It is Ed Miller driving one of Will Purvis’s teams.” Maybe someone out there will recognize these names.
Beets Arriving in Town, Johnstown, Colo. Postmarked 1909. (Photographer Unknown)
Every small town in Northern Colorado made postcards like this one, with groups of wagons, filled with sugar beets, coming to the local beet processing plant or to a rail siding to transfer their beets to rail cars. Below is a close-up of the crowd.
By 1910, sugar beet processing plants were going up all around Northern Colorado. Johnstown, despite its small population of around 200 people, wanted its own plant. Milliken, an even smaller town a few miles east of Johnstown, offered to assist in the effort. It took a while and a great deal of effort but on May 6, 1920, the Great Western Sugar Company (GWS) announced its intention to build a sugar beet factory between Johnstown and Milliken. Plans were drawn up and the plant was expected to be ready for the 1921 harvest. But, in late 1920, just months after construction started on the plant, the world sugar market collapsed, and work on the facility was halted.
GWS used the time wisely. Sugar beet possessors were struggling with the problem of what to do with discard molasses, the syrup that remains after the beets were processed. While sugar remained in the molasses, it couldn’t be economically extracted. Instead, the byproduct was sold for pennies as livestock feed. GWS was determined to use this time to find a way to successfully extract the sugar from the molasses.
GWS sent a team to Germany and France to study how they were handling molasses. The team returned with an idea and a plan that would use the unfinished Johnstown plant to process the molasses from all their sugar beet factories. New plans were drawn up, construction re-started, and the new Johnstown Molasses Desugarizing plant was operating in October 1926.
Johnstown Molasses Desugarizing Plant, October 25, 1926. (Photographer Unknown)
This image was made just prior to the plant’s grand opening. It ran in a newspaper with this caption:
Biggest of Its Kind in World – Million-dollar sugar beet molasses desugarizing plant erected at Johnstown, Colo., by the Great Western Sugar company, which will be formally dedicated Thursday, Oct. 28. This is the largest plant of its kind in the world and will add much to the prosperity of northern Colorado. The public is invited to attend the dedication.
On opening day, 4,000 visitors toured the plant. German sugar technologists visited the plant in 1928 writing, “What we have seen at Johnstown really astonished us.” The small community of Johnstown was now home to one of the most unique sugar plants in the world.
The Johnstown facility stayed relatively stable until April 1953, when GWS decided to build a monosodium glutamate (MSG) plant adjacent to the sugar facility. MSG had become an important flavor enhancer for many food products. Construction was quickly underway.
Construction of MSG Plant in Johnstown, CO, January 1, 1954. (Photographer Unknown)
This was another newspaper photograph printed on January 1, 1954 with the caption:
Under construction currently at Johnstown is this monosodium glutamate factory of the Great Western Sugar Co. When completed in October 1954, it will employ some 120 workers.
An imposing four-story structure, the new MSG plant opened in November 1954.
About the same time Johnstown’s MSG plant opened, the Fort Collins sugar beet factory closed. Sugar beets were beginning to run into hard times. One-by-one the Northern Colorado sugar plants closed. In 1977, the Johnstown plants heard the news of their closure.
Johnstown Workers Discuss News of Closing, January 4, 1977. (Photographer John Sunderland)
This photograph was from the Denver Post and ran in the newspaper on January 5, 1977 with a short caption: “Mike Evans, left, and Ernie Anderson discuss plant closings. Both will lose their jobs as mechanics when Johnstown facility shuts down.”
According to Footprints in the Sugar, both the molasses and MSG plants were closed. The plants sat idle until 1983 when Adolph Coors Co. bought the facility. Coors ran parts of the plant, under several different names, until it sold the facility to Colorado Sweet Gold (CSG), in February 1991. CSG used the plant to make cornstarch and related products. On August 3, 2001, CSG closed the plant and auctioned off much of the equipment. In 2005, many of the buildings were torn down.
CSG apparently still owns the property, their sign is still on the entrance, though I couldn’t find what it is being used for today, if anything. Below are two “now” photographs of the site, located on State Highway 60, between Johnstown and Milliken.
Colorado Sweet Gold, Johnstown, CO, September 2019. View from East Side. (Photographer M. E. McNeill)Colorado Sweet Gold, Johnstown, CO, September 2019. View from West Side. (Photographer M. E. McNeill)
Below are the links to my earlier posts on the Fort Collins, Loveland, and Windsor sugar beet plants.
Masons have been active in Fort Collins since 1870. Over the years, Collins Lodge 19 grew and moved to larger quarters all shared with other organizations or businesses. In 1921, the Masons, now 600 strong, felt they could afford a freestanding temple. A committee quickly purchased a lot on the southeast corner of Howes and West Oak Streets and began planning their building.
They chose William N. Bowman, a well-known Denver, Colorado architect, to design the temple. Bowman had designed major buildings across the state, including the Weld and Jackson County Courthouses. The building design was an example of Classic Revival architecture well suited for the traditions of a Masonic temple. On October 14, 1925, the cornerstone was laid, with about 125 Masons in attendance.
Cornerstone of the Fort Collins Masonic Temple. (M. E. McNeill, September 2, 2019)
Mark Miller, an early and long-time Fort Collins photographer was hired to take photographs of the construction process. The Fort Collins Archive has the photographs, including the one shown below that they allowed Barbara Fleming and me to use in our book Fort Collins: The Miller Photographs.
Construction of the Fort Collins Masonic Temple by Mark Miller, February 1, 1926. (Fort Collins Archive, H15899)
The photograph shows a partially completed building, with materials being delivered by horse and wagon. The building took a while to construct and furnish, and it wasn’t until June 29, 1927 that the new temple was complete and opened to the public for the first time.
Close-up of the Masonic Temple Fort Collins Colorado, 1929.
The postcard is dated June 10, 1929, on the back. It seems that the temple must be decorated for the 1929 July 4th celebration. The unusual circle on the left side of the building seems not to be a part of the decorations but rather some artifact from the developing and printing of the postcard.
On February 28, 2008, the Fort Collins Masonic Temple was added to the Colorado Registry of Historic Properties. The required nomination form describes the 77 by 103-foot building in detail. Below is the paragraph that describes the front entryway.
“The most prominent facade feature is the shallow central portico formed by six two-story tall Tuscan columns supporting a pediment. Leading up to the entry are three flights of stairs of three, five and seven steps with metal balustrades. This numeric step pattern represents Masonic symbolism. Within the portico, the entrance consists of three double doors each surmounted by a transom and pediment. Aligned above the entries are three tall narrow lattice windows with transoms. The portico frieze contains the inscription “MASONIC TEMPLE.” The tympanum contains a circular engraving of the Masonic crest–the compass, capital “G” and carpenter’s square.”
Here is a recent photograph that shows the step pattern and a closer view of the columns.
Front Portico of the Fort Collins Masonic Temple, 2019. (M. E. McNeill)
Tuscan columns are simple, unfluted shafts, with simple circular bases and capitals, with little or no carvings or ornaments. Considered strong and masculine, Tuscan columns originally were used for utilitarian and military buildings.
Below are two more images of the Fort Collins Masonic Temple, one from around 1953 and one from 2010.
Fort Collins Masonic Temple, postmarked 1953. (Photographer Unknown)Fort Collins Masonic Temple, January 1, 2010. (Photograph by M. E. McNeill)
The nomination form also mentions that the alterations to the building, over its life have been minor. That is borne out by the 2010 photograph of the structure. The building is still in use by the Masons, though it is now surrounded by commercial buildings, such as the First National Tower on the left, rather than homes.
How did a family travel to Fort Collins in 1901? Here are two pictures that can show us.
Family and Horse and Wagon, Laramie, WY, 1901 (4 ¼” x 3 ½” photo)
This is probably a family photograph taken at the start of a trip from Laramie to Fort Collins. The caption on the back reads, “Ready for the start. Wagon trip from Laramie, Wyo. To Fort Collins, Colo. – Summer, 1901.”
It looks like a family of eight beginning their trip south to Fort Collins. Here’s a close-up of the family.
Family of Eight Loading Up in Laramie, 1901
The distance from Laramie to Fort Collins is about 65 miles. A two-horse wagon might have traveled 20-miles, at best, over the kind of roads between Wyoming and Colorado in 1901. That means this family faced at least a three-day trip. (If someone has a better estimate of the time between the two towns in a horse and wagon, I’d love to hear it.)
But we know from a second photograph that they probably made it. Here it is:
The caption on the back of this photograph, in the same handwriting as the other photograph, reads, “Our trusty team. On the way to Fort Collins, Colo. – Summer, 1901.”
I’m not sure where this photograph was taken on the Poudre River but, by the width of the river and the size of the bridge, I’d guess it was close to Fort Collins.
How times have changed. Today we wouldn’t think twice about going to Laramie for lunch.
Below is a great photograph of Jefferson Street, in Fort Collins, CO, apparently made in 1887.
Jefferson Street, Fort Collins, 1887. (Cabinet Card, 8 ½” x 5 ¼” By David Lamon)
The image is taken from the intersection of Jefferson and Linden Street, shooting northwest up Jefferson Street towards College Avenue. The building on the right is the Tedmon House, one of the premier early hotels of Fort Collins. The Tedmon House, located on the northwest corner of the Linden/Jefferson intersection, opened in April 1880 and was torn down in 1910, along with many other buildings, to make way for a railroad expansion.
Here is a close-up of the Tedmon House.
Tedmon House, 1887.
This image was taken by David Lamon, a Denver photographer, and, a handwritten note on the reverse side, indicates it was taken in 1887. That date certainly falls in the life span of the Tedmon House, but we might be able to get closer by investigating the City Drug Store that occupied the near end of the Tedmon House when this photograph was taken.
Frank P. Stover’s City Drug Store moved around the Linden/Jefferson intersection, occupying three different corners until he sold it in 1919.
City Drug Store opened in 1873 in Old Grout, on the southwest corner of the Linden/Jefferson intersection. Old Grout was one of the early buildings of Fort Collins, built in 1866. At different times, Old Grout served as a warehouse, housed church services, was used as the county courthouse, and was home to City Drug.
In 1874, City Drug moved across Linden Street to the southeast corner of the intersection into the new Yount Bank Building.
In 1879, work began on the Tedmon House and, apparently, Stover decided it would help his business to become one of their keystone tenants. On April 1, 1880, The Fort Collins Courier ran a major article on Stover’s new City Drug Store, now located in the Tedmon House, saying it was “simply magnificent and worthy of a visit by every admirer of the artistic. Mr. Stover has succeeded in fitting up his rooms in a manner that not only reflects credit on himself but on the town also.” The northwest corner of the intersection was now home to City Drug.
In 1881 or 1882, Old Grout had been torn down and Stover had the chance to build his own building on the original location of City Drug. As early as July 1882, the local papers were reporting on the progress of his construction, called the Keystone Block, and predicting an October opening. But on the morning of September 19, 1882, just a few weeks before opening, the new building caught fire and burned to the ground. Apparently. Stover was able to renew his agreement with the Tedmon House and stayed there until late 1887 or early 1888.
On January 5, 1888, a newspaper article described a “lively party” in the room of the Tedmon House formerly occupied by City Drug Store. So, by this date, Stover was out of the Tedmon House. Stover finally had his own building for the City Drug Store and it was back on the southwest corner of Linden and Jefferson Streets, where it would stay until he sold the business in 1919.
This image must have been made prior to January 5, 1888, so the 1887 date written on the back of the photograph seems to be correct.
Below are two more enlargements. The first one is a close-up of the front of the Tedmon House, and the people lounging and working there.
Front of the Tedmon House, 1887
Here we have six men and a dog. The two most interesting things to me are the man spraying Jefferson Street, I suppose to keep the dust down, and the mortar and pestle mounted on the pole on the right side of the image. Mortars and pestles were traditionally used in pharmacies to crush various ingredients prior to preparing a prescription. The mortar and pestle is one of the most pervasive symbols of pharmacology, and was probably installed by Stover to mark his drug store.
The last image is a close-up of the other side of Jefferson Street, in 1887.
“The Other Side of the Street,” Jefferson Street, 1887
This side of the photograph isn’t as clear, but, on the original, I can make out the signage. Also, the Fort Collins Archive has identified the three buildings in the row.
The first building is the Courier Building, possibly home to the Fort Collins Courier at that time. You can see the “Harness Shop” sign on the front and the “Courier” and “Feed Store” signs on top. The second, or middle building, is the Vandewark Block. The sign in front of it reads “Vandewark & Gordon/Grain Flour Feeds/Agricultural Implements.” The last building in line, with no visible signs, is the Jefferson Block.
There seems to be an empty lot at the Linden Street end of the row of buildings. I’d guess that it was the location of Old Grout, the 1882 fire that destroyed the Keystone Building, and the eventual location of City Drug, when Stover left the Tedmon House.
I hope you enjoyed this look back at Jefferson Street in 1887.
On March 18, 1983, eight people linked arms and knelt on the railroad tracks on Mason Street just north of Mulberry Street in peaceful protest of a white train said to be carrying nuclear weapons from Texas to a submarine base in Bangor, WA. They were probably wearing one of the buttons shown below.
“Stop the Death Train” Pinback, 1983
These trains, used to move nuclear weapons from the 1950s to the 1980s, looked entirely ordinary, except for a few key details. They featured multiple heavily armored boxcars sandwiched in between “turret cars,” which protruded above the rest of the train. The turrets had slit windows through which armed DOE guards peered out, prepared to shoot to defend the train. Some guards had simple rifles, while others reportedly had automatic machine guns and hand-grenade launchers. The trains were highly resistant to attack and unauthorized entry, offered a high degree of cargo protection in event of fire or serious accident, and they were painted white.
When news of the 1983 white train spread through the county, “peace blockades” were established along the route. One online article said that as many as 450 cities and towns, along the route, were involved. In Fort Collins, the train came within feet of the eight protestors, who were dragged from the track and arrested by city police officers.
One of the protestors was John Kefalas, now a Colorado State Senator representing District 14.
Fort Collins Images is back! After a 16 month hiatus, I’ve returned to share more vintage images of the Fort Collins, CO area, starting with this great 1889 advertising trade card for the Larimer County Fair.
1889 Larimer County Fair Advertising Card (5 ¼” x 3 ¼”)
As near as I could find by searching the online Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection, the Larimer County Fair started in Fort Collins in 1880. It was run by the Larimer County Agricultural and Mechanical Association from 1880 through 1883, incurring over $4,000 in debt. To salvage the fair, the Larimer County Fair Association was re-organized in March 1884, funded by the sale of stock shares bought by “some of the most prominent farmers, horse men, cattle men, sheep men, fruit growers and manufacturers in the county, all of whom [were] successful and well-to-do business men.”
The Association quickly established a fairgrounds, approximately where Poudre Hospital is today, and began to expand the program and prizes to include horse racing, live stock competitions, and displays of agricultural and mechanical products. They decided to hold a fair in 1884 and renumbered it as the “First Annual Fair of Larimer County.”
It was a four-day fair, starting on September 24, 1884, and included some special contests like a five-dollar gold piece to the “prettiest baby under 15 months of age.” According to the October 2, 1884 Fort Collins Courier, the fair was a huge success, attracting almost 6,000 people over the four-day period.
1889 Larimer County Fair Advertising Card Reverse Side
The Association ran the fair for a few years but after 1891, it seems to have stopped. A Fort Collins Courier article, dated December 16, 1897, reported that the Association had “passed out of existence” and that after paying all their bills, they “had $2.14 to divide among the stock holders.”
Organizers tried again in 1912, reviving the fair in Loveland where it continues to this day as an event at the Ranch, on I25 just north of Crossroads Boulevard.
I’ll share a few more early advertising trade cards, related to Fort Collins, in my next post.
According to Ansel Watrous’ History of Larimer County, Colorado, the Commercial Bank & Trust Co. was established on May 23, 1906. Located at 146 North College Avenue, B. F. Clark was the first president. If we are to believe its 1914 letterhead, L. C. Moore was now the president and Munchkins were visiting our city. Below are scans of the full letterhead and an enlargement of their logo.
Commercial Bank & Trust Letterhead, 1914.Commercial Bank Logo, 1914.
The Munchkins, the diminutive creatures in Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz were obviously in town for the day. If I’ve done the math correctly, the smartly dressed homunculi are approximately two-feet, three-inches tall, short even for normal Munchkins who were around four-feet tall in the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie.
Why haven’t we heard of this visitation before? Was there a government cover-up?
Below is a Munchkin-less photograph I took of the Commercial Bank & Trust Co in 2009. At that time, the bar was called the Vault. Today, it is the High Point Bar.
The Commercial Bank & Trust Co. is a Fort Collins Landmark Building.
Fort Collins Images 