During the first half of the 1900s, sugar beets were the big agricultural crop of Northern Colorado. The best sugar beet farmers received recognition and monetary awards from the sugar beet factories. Usually, a factory’s top ten farms were given awards at the annual end of season celebration, based on the tons of sugar beets they delivered per acre. The winners were the rock stars of the industry. In 1941, the Longmont, Colorado Junior Chamber of Commerce decided to sponsor their own sugar beet competition and the first world championship beet-shoveling contest was born.
Even in 1941, sugar beet farming was a very manual effort. The fields beets were manually planted and thinned. Adults and children used short handle hoes to weed around the young plants. When the plants were ready to harvest, the heavy beets were pulled from the ground and “topped” with a sharp knife called a hook. The leaves were thrown to one side and the topped beets piled between the rows. Below is a circa 1905 photograph of beet harvesting near Windsor, CO.
Sugar Beet Harvesting, Windsor, Colorado, c. 1905
Horse-drawn wagons, and later trucks, followed the harvesters as men tossed the beets into the vehicles, using mostly pitch forks. This strength and skill was the one the Longmont, Colorado Junior Chamber of Commerce decided to recognize.
The championship test was as simple and strenuous as sugar beet harvesting. Each contestant had to move one and one-half tons of sugar beets (approximately 2,000 beets), from the ground into the bed of a truck. The winner of the first annual world championship beet-shoveling contest was Joe Fruhwirth, of Fort Collins, Colorado. Below is Joe’s photograph and the description of his performance that ran in local newspapers.
Joe Fruhwirth, Champion Sugar Beet Shoveler, November, 1941.
“WINS SUGAR BEET SHOVELING TITLE IN WHIRLWIND FINISH.
Longmont, Colo.: Add sugar beet shoveling to your list of championships! Joe Fruhwirth, of Fort Collins, Colo., brought spectators to their feet in the crowded Roosevelt Stadium, as he became the first national champ sugar beet shoveler by throwing one and a half tons into the truck in five minutes, thirteen seconds. The champ ended up throwing the stray beets into the truck by hand, as he crawled around cleaning up the ground.”
Joe beat the second place finisher by 11 seconds to claim first place and the $75 award.
My last Poudre Canyon post covered Glen Echo. In this post, we’ll continue west two or three miles, stopping briefly at Profile Rock and then spending a good deal of time at the only Poudre Canyon resort on the National Register of Historic Places, Arrowhead Lodge.
Barbara Fleming and I have written about Arrowhead Lodge several times. Some of the information, in this post, comes from our previous books and articles. Much of that information came from Stanley Case’s, The Poudre: A Photo History. The rest of the information comes from the 40+ page application used to get Arrowhead Lodge listed on the National Register.
Profile Rock, Poudre Canyon, Postmarked 1943. Photograph by Mark Miller.
Profile Rock, around milepost 89, is probably the most recognized rock formation in the Poudre Canyon, used for years as a navigation point in the canyon. Before taking its current name, the whole rock formation was called Arrowhead Point. The lodge may have taken its name from this rock formation, just to its east.
As the automobile gained in popularity, travelers flooded into the Poudre Canyon. More and more resorts and stores began to open to serve the auto-travelers. Arrowhead Lodge was one of them. Arrowhead was built between 1933 and 1935 by Carl Brafford and Brye Gladstone. Brafford had a successful Fort Collins dry cleaning business and supplied the money. Gladstone, a builder by trade, had already opened the Sportsman’s Lodge farther up the canyon, and with his son, built Arrowhead.
According to Stanley Case, the lodge, along with five cabins, opened in 1936.
Arrowhead Lodge, Poudre Canyon, c. 1947. Photograph by Swanson.
A number of additions to the lodge make dating early images pretty easy. Here is a list of the easily seen additions, with their approximate dates.
1936 Original lodge opens with five cabins
1940 Water fountain added near entrance drive
1943 West game room addition added
1948 East dining room addition added
In this image, you can see the water fountain, with the west addition barely visible behind it, so we know it was taken after 1943. Since the east addition isn’t present, it was taken before 1948. I have earlier images of the lodge but none of them have the great 1947 Pontiac Woody in the photograph.
1947 Pontiac Woody Resort Car at Arrowhead Lodge, c. 1947. Photograph by Swanson.
Arrowhead must have used this automobile to move guests and supplies around. Though you may not be able to see it in this image, it has an “Arrowhead Lodge” sign on the side and, I believe, a sign on the back that reads “Arrowhead Lodge on Colorado’s Trout Route.”
Melvin Swanson was a Fort Collins photographer who made a series of numbered images of Fort Collins and the surrounding area in the late 1940s. This is image number 88. I’ll probably do a post on his work in the future.
Arrowhead Lodge, Poudre Canyon, c. 1950. Photograph by Miller.
The logs used for the lodge were local logs cut at the sawmill at Chambers Lake.
This image of the lodge clearly shows the two additions, the c. 1943 game room addition on the left and the c. 1948 dining room addition on the right. The fountain is probably turned off and is hidden by the tree in the right foreground. The fountain, built around 1940, was made from local stones and was originally served by a natural spring. Rainbow trout made their home in the circular depression around the fountain.
The sitting room of the lodge shows up on a lot of postcards, many by Mark Miller. Here is an early image of the room, before the c. 1943 game room was added.
Arrowhead Lodge Main Room, Poudre Canyon, c. 1942. Photograph by Mark Miller.
The lodge was furnished with handmade furniture and, according to the National Register document, museum quality western artifacts and animal heads. You can see that there are windows on both sides of the fireplace. After the west addition was added, the right window was replaced with a door to the game room.
Arrowhead Lodge, Fireplace Close-up, before 1943. Photograph by Mark Miller.
Here is a closer look at the fireplace. The arrowhead inserted in rocks above the mantle was carved by Stanley Case out of white alabaster, for the original owners. Stanley Case helped with some of the lodge construction and in 1946 Case and his wife, Lola, bought the lodge from the Bradford’s.
Arrowhead Lodge, Poudre Canyon, Main Room, c. 1960. Photograph by Charles Curs.
This is another image of the main lodge room. You can see the door to the game room addition on the right side of the fireplace. By the way, the mammoth fireplace was built using local rocks and was initially the only source of heat in the lodge building. The dining room, which you will see in the next image, added a second fireplace on the east side of the lodge.
I decided to use this color image to show the knotty pine used on the walls and the red oak flooring. Charles Curs was a Fort Collins photographer, with a studio on East Mulberry Street between 1960 and 1970.
Arrowhead Lodge Dining Room, Poudre Canyon, postmarked 1953. Photograph by Mark Miller.
Until the dining room addition was added in 1948, the guests either cooked their own food or had sandwiches and pie at the small tables in the lodge. The new addition, on the east side of the lodge, added the dining room, a kitchen, and a walk-in cooler. The red and white floor tile was added in a checkerboard pattern.
Guests stayed in cabins that were arranged in a semi-circle around the lodge. Below is a diagram from the National Register application showing the layout of the 13 cabins.
Layout of Arrowhead Lodge, Cabins, and Other Buildings.
The first five cabins were built before the lodge opened in 1936. Each cabin used an Indian related name, apparently to tie to the arrowhead theme. The first five cabins were Wigwam, cabin 9 on the layout; Thunderbird, cabin 10; Navajo, Cabin 11; Hopi, Cabin 12; and Zuni, cabin 13. The size of the cabins varied between 200 and 400 square feet and initially rented for $2.50 per night.
Twelve of the thirteen cabins were completed before Case bought the lodge in 1946. The last cabin, Pawnee, was built by Case in May 1946. It is shown below.
Arrowhead Lodge, Pawnee Cabin, Poudre Canyon, c. 1950. Photograph by Mark Miller.
The Cases were able to make a paying proposition of the resort, which during their tenure was a community gathering place as well as a popular tourist stop. Some guests returned year after year. When there, they might be invited to join a community pancake supper, a square dance, a Halloween party, a pie social or a talent show. The lodge room hosted church services as well as films. Now and then there would be a “shivaree” for newlyweds who had come to the resort for their honeymoon.
When it came time for the Cases to retire after 39 years, they sold the property to the US Forest Service. Although the Cases had initially understood that the Forest Service would keep the buildings and use them for official purposes, personnel changes and budget constraints caused a change in direction and the USFS decided to demolish the resort. Dismayed, a citizens’ coalition led by long-time canyon resident Elyse Bliss eventually achieved a National Historic Site designation for the lodge and it was saved, although the cabins are being allowed to deteriorate. Now a summer visitors’ center, Arrowhead Lodge is a friendly stopping place for information, coffee and homemade cookies, and picnicking.
We know our area can have blizzards and floods and certainly hailstorms but we forget that Weld County has more tornadoes than any other county in the United States. One reason is its size; Weld County is four times as big as the national average. More land area equates to more opportunity to see a tornado but there is also a geological reason. Weld county sits in a bowl, making it part of a “cyclone convergence zone.”
Fortunately, though, Weld County tornadoes tend to be small tornadoes, F0 or F1 on a scale that goes to F5. But, occasionally, Weld County does see stronger tornadoes, some of which have caused deaths.
On May 22, 2008, one of Weld County’s most destructive tornadoes, an F3, struck the town of Windsor, which sits in both Weld and Larimer counties, killing one person and injuring 78 others. The town was declared both a local and national disaster area; it sustained nearly $125 million in damages. Thankfully, tornado deaths are very unusual in Weld County and even in Colorado. Since 1950, only three tornado related deaths have occurred in Colorado.
Earlier tornado records are hard to come by but a tornado researcher has found ten Colorado tornados that have resulted in death prior to 1950. One of the ten serious tornadoes was the Johnstown tornado of 1928. Johnstown is another town shared by Larimer and Weld counties. Two women died and 50 others were injured when a tornado passed just west of Johnstown on June 29, 1928, around 11:45 a.m.
Johnstown Tornado Damage, House 1 Wide View, June 30, 1928.
The event was covered in detail by the Fort Collins Express – Courier. Tornado sirens were a long ways in the future and the tornado struck without warning. One man, who the newspaper called a “modern Paul Revere,” drove his motorcycle to farm after farm screaming for the residents to hide or drive away. Though they didn’t know his name, the newspaper credited the man for saving a number of lives that day.
Johnstown Tornado Damage, House 1, June 30, 1928.
The tornado hit mostly farm country, sparing the Johnstown downtown area. A number of farm houses, like those shown in these photographs, were destroyed. The Fujita scale of tornado intensity wasn’t introduced until the 1970s but the newspaper had its own measure. “The regulation tornado aspect of the storm is verified by the fact that chickens in the storm stretch were stripped of their feathers.” A horse was also picked up and jammed into the cellar door of one house.
Auto Stood on End by Johnstown Tornado, June 30, 1928.
The Express – Courier carrier this story about a man and his automobile.
“A Ford Automobile, stripped as not even highway vultures would strip a stolen car, was left leaning upward against a tree, one end off the ground, according to Ken Brown, city fireman, who was one of the visitors to the Johnstown district.”
Here are two more images of a second (I think) destroyed home.
Johnstown Tornado Damage, House 2 Wide View, June 30, 1928.Johnstown Tornado Damage, House 2, June 30, 1928.
While only two people were killed, many were injured. Doctors rushed into the area from Loveland and from a meeting of the Larimer County Medical Association that was coincidently taking place in Fort Collins.
Though small in comparison to the storms of tornado alley, in the middle of the country, the Johnstown Tornado of 1928 remains on the list of the most deadly tornados of Colorado.
As automobiles got cheaper and more reliable, and as improved roads were built, tourists flooded into the West. Many of the tourists were looking for low-cost lodging. Western towns, including Fort Collins, responded by opening municipal campgrounds and then tourist cabins, which I cover in an earlier post entitled “City Park Campgrounds and Tourist’s Cabins.” Businessmen also responded opening lodgings for tourists that used many names – cottage camps, courts, and lodges. The name “motel” came along later, blending the two words “motor” and “hotel.” Since it is the name we use today, I’m going to call all of the facilities motels.
The new motels sprang up along the main travel roads; College Avenue in the case of Fort Collins. They opened to the north and south of the town, where cheaper land was available. In this post and the next, I’m going to cover the motels that appeared on North College Avenue. In a later post, I’ll cover the South College Avenue businesses.
As far as I can find, there were 21 named motels along North College. Four still remain as motels. The 21 named motels were at 13 different addresses. Some of the motels changed names. One motel had six different names. I’ll share images of nine of the 21 named motels, though I’ll mention more of them. I’m going to go chronologically, starting with the earliest motel, and I’ll break the post into two parts by when they opened, 1929 – 1950 and 1952 – 1960. Because of the gaps in city directories, the opening and closing dates are approximate.
Motel Address Open Close
All States Cottage Court 1023 North College 1929 1951
Cozy Court 1023 North College 1951 1983
The earliest motel on the north side of town (and, I think, the earliest motel in the entire town) first appeared in the 1929 Fort Collins city directory. It was called All States Cottage Camp and was located at 1023 North College Avenue. Here is an early postcard of the camp.
All States Cottage Camp, c. 1930. Photograph by Sanborn.
The design is similar to the design of the first municipal tourist cabins that were built a year earlier in City Park, small cottages that were separated by covered spaces where automobiles could park. You cans see the small store and gas station on the right side of the image. Here is a close-up of the store and station.
All States Cottage Camp Close-up, Colo. C. 1930.
The sign above the store advertises “Tourist Cabins.” The automobile has been identified by the Antique Automobile Club of America as possibly a 1929 Nash and it is getting gas from a Gilbert & Barker gas pump. This was a visible gas pump with the glass cylinder marked in gallons similar to a large science beaker. It not only showed you how many gallons you had pumped but let you see the clarity of the gas at a time when impurities were a significant issue.
Here is another image of All States a few years later:
All States Cottage Camp, Fort Collins, c. 1938.
As you can see, there have been some major changes in just a few years. The cottages are gone and a building that looks more like motel can now be seen. Also, the store has been enlarged and electric gas pumps have been installed. The sign on the far left, probably impossible for you to read, says “All States Camp.”
Around 1951 or 1952, All States was sold and changed names to “Cozy Court.”
Cozy Court, Highway 287, Fort Collins, c. 1955.
The gas pumps are gone and the store now looks more like a home than a commercial building but the rental rooms look pretty much the same.
Cozy Court closed sometime in 1983 or 1984. Today, Advance Auto Parts is in its place.
Motel Address Open Close
Riverside Cottage Camp 620 North College 1933 1957
Gaston’s Cottage Court 1303 North College 1940 1950
Stonecrest Court 1303 North College 1950 1987
The second motel on North College Avenue was the Riverside College Camp that was open by 1933 at 620 North College Avenue. I don’t have an image of it but I do have postcards from the next motel. There was a seven year gap until Gaston’s Cottage Court opened at 1303 North College. In 1950, it changed hands and became the Stonecrest Court. Here is an early postcard of it, after the name change.
Stonecrest Court, c. 1950
The short advertising blurb on the back of the card reads, “Steam heat – cool in summer – kitchenettes. Accommodations from two to six persons, Telephone 2151.”
As near as I can tell, the Stonecrest operated as a motel until around 1987 and then must have begun renting out its units as apartments or small businesses. It still exists today under the name Stonecrest Rentals. Below is a photograph of it taken yesterday.
Stonecrest Rentals, November 11, 2017. Photograph by M. E. McNeill
The two foreground buildings remain but the motel units in the back seem to have been replaced by a trailer park.
Motel Address Open Close
Mountain View Court 740 North College 1939 1972
Mountain View Court, c. 1943.
Mountain View Court is the last of the group of motels that opened on North College before World War II. This postcard exemplifies the problem with motel names, at this time. The front of the card uses “Mountain View Court,” the sign (which you probably can’t read) uses “Mountain View Cabins,” and the reverse side calls it “Mountain View Cottages.” They have most of the variations covered.
The design is similar to the design of the first municipal tourist cabins and the earliest cabins at All States, with small cabins separated by covered spaces for automobiles.
Below is a scatter diagram displaying the North College Avenue motels by opening year, on the x-axis, and street address, on the y-axis.
You can see the gap between the first two motels and the second pair of motels and the larger gap to the next group of motels, mostly explained by World War II. You can also see how the motels opened farther north as the years went by.
Motel Address Open Close
Shady Lane Trailer Camp North of Fort Collins 1946 1949
Shady Lane is an interesting entry. It open and closed between city directories, which weren’t printed during WWII. It did show up in the 1940s telephone books but without a street address, just “North of Fort Collins.” I assume it was on North College Avenue, but I haven’t been able to confirm the location.
The end of WWII kicked off another major tourist boom for the west and new motels started to spring up again. The first of this group was considered the city’s most luxurious motor lodge, offering a swimming pool and a popular dining room.
Motel Address Open Close
El Palomino Lodge 1220 North College 1949
El Palomino Lodge, postmarked 1952.El Palomino Motel & Restaurant, c. 1960
It is interesting to compare the two postcards, made eight to ten years apart. In the first postcard, the Palomino is a “Lodge,” in the second it has been renamed a “Motel.” Unfortunately, the great “Lodge” sign is gone in the 1960s version. The descriptions on the back of the cards probably tell us what was important to hotel guests in the two periods.
Here is the 1950s description:
“Northern Colorado’s newest and finest unit motor lodge and café located in the cool shadow of the Rockies. . . . Gateway to the beautiful Poudre Canon, Colorado’s Trout Route.”
And here is the 1960s version:
“42 units designed for the complete comfort of our guests, with the ultimate in comfortable furnishings – excellent dining room and snack bar – heated swimming pool and sun deck – free 21” television in all rooms – refrigeration air conditioning – thermostatically controlled heat.”
Though I don’t know for sure, I’d guess that the swimming pool wasn’t part of the original lodge. If it was, certainly the early image and description would have included the upscale feature.
Palomino is the first of the early motels still serving guests. Below is a recent photograph of it.
El Palomino, October 26, 2017. Photograph by M. E. McNeill
Next week I’ll finish our trip up North College Avenue, sharing images of the more recent motels.
As automobiles got cheaper and more reliable, and as improved roads were built, tourists flooded into the West. Many of the tourists were looking for low-cost lodging. Western towns, including Fort Collins, responded by opening municipal campgrounds like this one, located in City Park and photographed in the 1920s.
City Park Municipal Campground, c. 1925.
According to Carol Tunner’s, “An Overview of the Fort Collins Park System,” which was the source of my information for this post, the campground opened in 1919 in what was an old tree nursery. Initially, 26 lots or campsites were laid out for tents, the lots averaging 30 x 60 feet. A few water faucets, seven fireplaces with free wood, and a sanitary toilet provided the services for the campers. For their part, the campers were expected to burn their own trash, keep the area clean, and not damage the trees. Here’s a second image of the campground, probably from the 1930s.
City Park Municipal Campground, c. 1930.
Initially, the use of the campground was free but in 1924 a fee of 50 cents per night was established.
In 1923, the Fort Collins contracted with the park concessionaire, Robert W. Lampton, to build a two-story community house. The lower floor would provide services to the tourists – an assembly room, dining room, gas plates for cooking, a laundry room, and a small selection of groceries. Lampton would use the second floor as his residence. A few years later, a combined toilet and tool house was built next door to the community house. Below is a photograph of the two buildings, probably taken sometime in the 1930s.
Community House, c. 1935
Towards the end of the 1920s, towns were beginning to offer small cabins for tourists wanting lodging a little more upscale than a campground, but still economical. In 1927, Lampton approached the city with the idea of building 16 tourist cabins. In the fall of 1928, two mirrored buildings, with eight connected cottages each were built at 1544 W. Oak Street. The cabins were called the Paramount Cottage Camp. Here is a photograph of the facility, circa 1930, along with a close-up of one side.
Paramount Cottage Camp, c. 1930Paramount Cottage Camp, West Side, c. 1930
By 1930, Lampton was also listed as the proprietor of the service station on the left side of the image, facing Bryan Street.
When Paramount stopped being used as a tourist camp is unknown, but by 1954, the units were being listed as apartments for permanent residents. In 2009, the owners of the property, Maureen Plotnicki and Stephen Weber, filed an application to get a Fort Collins Landmark designation for the property. It was approved in 2009 and the owners worked to bring Paramount back to its historical look. As you can see in the photograph I took this past week, they have done a great job.
Paramount Cottage Camp, October 27, 2017, Photograph by M. E. McNeill.
Even before the Paramount Cottage Camp was complete, Lampton petitioned the City Council for permission to build 16 more cabins, this time in City Park. The Council agreed and decided there should be eight two-unit cabins. Like the Paramount, the two structures would mirror each other, four units on a side, under unbroken roofs with covered spaces between them where cars could be parked. Below is a postcard showing the cabins shortly after their construction in 1928. I’ve also included a close-up of the left-side cabins.
City Park Tourist’s Cabins, 1928.City Park Tourist’s Cabins, Close-up, 1928.
You can see a building at the end of the left line of cabins. I believe it is the shower and toilet building for the 16 cabins. The cabins were officially named the Municipal Cottage Camp.
Demand for the tourist’s cabins was great and immediately Lampton and the city decided to add five more two-unit cabins with open garages, with one of the cabins to be used as a laundry. Below is another postcard image after the expansion.
Municipal Cottage Camp, Ft. Collins, Colo, c. 1935. Photograph by Sanborn.
My postcard has this message on the back, postmarked June 17, 1939:
“Municipal Cottage Camp, Cabin #16. Reached here last night after a nice trip and visit at Rapid City. Rode up a nice road into the mountains this pm. We are at the foot of the Rockies – Beautiful!”
Unfortunately, the Depression was already affecting business. Lampton and the City reduced cabin rates in 1932, from $1.25 to $1.00 per day, hoping to keep the cabins filled but business continued to drop. By 1933, revenues from the campground and cabins wasn’t covering the costs. By the end of 1935, Lampton gave up the City Park concessions. The City tried to keep the facilities running but it seems like they gave up in 1940.
The cabins were used as low-income housing for awhile but eventually the City Park cabins were removed. A few were moved up to the Fort Collins water treatment plant in the Poudre Canyon. Others just disappeared, with no record of a new use.
An interesting era in City Park was over but a new commercial era was starting; motels were springing up along College Avenue. I’ll cover the motels in two future posts.
A few weeks ago, I did a post entitled “Poudre Canyon: The Rustic House and Resort.” The Rustic was one of the earliest hotels and resorts in the upper Poudre Canyon, opening in 1880. A neighbor, the Glen Echo Resort, moved in just to its west in 1921.
Glen Echo, on land which once belonged to pioneer settler Norman Fry, was for a time the headquarters for the Racine Mining, Milling and Power Company. The property, after the Racine headquarters building had burned down, was purchased by John and Carrie Cook and H.L and Edith Harris. By 1921, it housed a small store.
The first mention I could find of Glen Echo was a two paragraph article in the December 11, 1921, Fort Collins Courier:
“Glen Echo is just the beginning of a summer resort owned by Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Harris and Mr. and Mrs. John F. Cook. They are all making their homes at Glen Echo which joins the property of the Rustic. . . . In fact, people often think Glen Echo belongs to the Rustic, as it is so near the hotel.
“Messrs. Cook and Harris are building a barn, ice house and garage for four cars. They will serve meals and rent cottages in the coming summer and run a general store at Glen Echo. It will be a pleasant place to spend a few weeks during the warm months.”
Like the Rustic, the original store was located on the north side of the road and, like the Rustic; it was moved across the road to the south side. According to Stanley Case, the original store building was hauled across the road by two teams of horses, probably in 1924 or 1925. Once in position on the east side of the canyon road, the store was joined by four rental accommodations, initially wooden platforms with tents.
The Cooks and Harris lost the property during the depression and by early 1931 Glen Echo was sold to Herman Welter, who would own it for a number of years. Welter quickly added an addition on the back of the store as his living area and painted and generally fixed up the place. He also added five rental cabins. Below is an image of Glen Echo, from this period, along with a close-up of the store and cabins.
Glen Echo, c. 1933. Photograph by Mark Miller.Glen Echo Close-Up, c. 1933, Photograph by Mark Miller.
Mark Miller was a long-time Fort Collins photographer who enjoyed working in the canyon. Many of the Poudre images we have were taken by Miller.
Below is a later Miller photograph of the resort.
Glen Echo, 1937. Photograph by Mark Miller.
As you can see, Welter has refinished the building a darker color, added a front awning, and a much bigger Glen Echo sign. Also, in much smaller letters, it says “Herman Walter’s Place” over the Glen echo sign. He now also has a gasoline pump in front of the store.
The two cars on the south side of the road are believed to be 1936 Fords, while the nearer auto is probably a 1935 Pontiac. The image is so sharp that the license plate on the Pontiac is readable. It is a 1937 Colorado plate, giving us a solid date for the photograph.
Case tells a story in his book, The Poudre: A Photo History, that Welter guaranteed that every guest would catch their limit of fish, even if he had to occasionally help. Welter was an excellent fisherman and was nicknamed “the blue heron.”
Herman Welter sold the property to Earl and Elizabeth (Dolly) Stonemets in 1946. They built a new store that completely enveloped the old store. They also put on an extension to the east. Here’s what the Stonemets’ version of the Glen Echo store looked like circa 1950.
Glen Echo, 1950. Photograph by Mark Miller.
The beautiful automobile parked at the store is a 1949 Buick Super. Below are two images of the interior, from this same period.
Glen Echo Resort Store Interior, c. 1950. Photograph by Mark Miller.
Unfortunately, the people in the photograph aren’t identified. Forced to guess, I would pick Earl Stonemets as the man in the tie and Dolly as the lady behind the ice cream counter. If any of you know for sure, please contact me.
Glen Echo Resort Dining Room, c. 1950. Photograph by Mark Miller.
The cabins, of course, were important to the success of the resort. Miller made a number of photographs of the cabins. I’ve picked two of them to share.
Glen Echo Cabins, Postmarked 1946. Photograph by Mark Miller.Glen Echo Cabin #1, c. 1950. Photograph by Mark Miller.
When Miller took this photograph, circa 1950, it was the most important and historic cabin at the resort. Notice the outhouse to the right and rear of the cabin. Called Cabin # 1, it was the Cooks’ home when they started the resort back in 1921. Around 1931, when Herman Welter added a living quarters to the back of the store, the building became a rental cabin for large parties. It served guests until 1984 when it was taken down to make room for a laundry and a recreation center.
In April 2003 the main building burned down; it was replaced a few years later and still offers a restaurant, store, cabins and campsites. Here’s a recent photograph I took of the Glen Echo store.
Glen Echo Store, June 5, 2017. Photograph by M. E. McNeill.
Centrally located on Highway 14, at almost 100 years old, Glen Echo is still serving guests visiting the Poudre Canyon. I hope the current owners, Dean & Tami Mazzuca and Dan & Denice Anderson, are planning a big celebration for 2021.
Fort Collins has been proud of its schools for a long time. The town opened a kindergarten in 1880, the first kindergarten west of St. Louis, MO. It also started a four-year high school program in 1889, long before other western towns of similar size. The pride also spread to the student body. The above multi-view postcard was mailed by a proud granddaughter, Florence, c. 1907, to her grandmother. Her message reads, “Grandma, this is my school house in the right hand corner, the Remington school. I will mark it X so you will know. Florence”
Below are photographs of the early historic schools in Fort Collins. The Fort Collins Archive kindly let me use a couple of their images so that you can see all the Fort Collins early schools from the Remington School, opened in 1879, through the second Fort Collins High School opened in 1925.
There are a lot of images so I’ve kept the text to a minimum. If you want to know more about the schools, here are links to a school post Meg Dunn wrote on Forgotten Fort Collins and to the premier document on the school system, In the Hallowed Halls of Learning: The History and Architecture of Poudre School District R-1, by Historitecture, L. L. C. It is available as a pdf and can tell you anything you want to know about the history of the Poudre School system. Most of the dates and other information I’ve used come from Chapter 5 of this document.
The Yellow Schoolhouse, 115 Riverside Avenue. Photograph by M. E. McNeill, September 15, 2017.
The first building constructed for the Fort Collins School system was a simple home built at what is now 115 Riverside Avenue. It was a front-gabled, wood frame building and opened in September 1871, almost 150 years ago. It was known as the “yellow schoolhouse.” I’ve never seen an early image of the school but, fortunately, the building still exists and is shown to the left in a photograph I took this week. It is designated a local historic landmark.
As the town grew, the need for a bigger school became apparent. The answer was a sturdy, square, brick structure at 318 Remington Street. The Remington School opened in 1879 and featured gaslights, central heating, and three teachers. Below is an image of the school, courtesy of the Fort Collins Archives.
Remington Street School, c. 1900. Fort Collins Archive, H02957.
The Remington School was razed in the late 1960s to make room for the DMA Plaza senior housing.
Only a few years after the Remington School was built, the need for another school became clear. The Benjamin Franklin School, on the southwest corner of Mountain Avenue and Howes Street, was completed in 1887, serving third- through eighth-grade students. Below are photographs of the school, from two different sides.
Franklin School, c. 1890. Photograph by E. F. Bunn.Franklin School Detail, c. 1890. Photograph by E. F. Bunn.Franklin School, c. 1910.Franklin School Detail, c. 1910.
The Franklin School was a large, square, two-story structure. The large chimneys, projecting from the roof, helped communicate a sense of massiveness that wasn’t felt when looking at the Remington School. The completion of this building must have added to the growing civic pride of our small town.
The school boasted electric lighting and other modern conveniences. It was also the home to the district’s first high school – an experiment – that began in two classrooms. The high school graduated four girls and one boy in 1891. The building was torn down in 1959 to make room for Steele’s Market that itself was demolished in 2010.
High school enrollment soon justified a separate high school. The new school was designed by Fort Collins’ architect, Montezuma Fuller, and completed in 1903. It was located at 417 South Meldrum Street.
Fort Collins High School, 417 South Meldrum Street, 1906.Fort Collins High School, 417 South Meldrum Street, c. 1910.Fort Collins High School Reception Hall, 1912.
There were staircases on both sides of the school. Boys entered the school on the south and girls used the north entrance, with each having a separate lunchroom. Below are two images of the school in 1912.
Fort Collins High School 1912 Senior Boys.
The high school was expanded twice, to the south in 1916 and to the north in 1921. Below is a color postcard of the school after the 1916 addition.
Fort Collins High School, 417 South Meldrum Street, with South Wing, c. 1916.
Upon completion of the new high school, this building became Lincoln Junior High School. In 1977, parts of the school were torn down and parts were incorporated into the new Lincoln Center.
Fort Collins student population continued to grow quickly and in 1906/1907 the school district made a decision to build a pair of twin schools – both built from the same set of plans. Architectural critics decried it as unimaginative but the practice provided fast growing school systems with efficiencies of time and money. Montezuma Fuller was again hired as the architect. In 1906, the Laurel Street School opened, followed in 1907 by the Laporte Avenue School. Below is an image of the Laporte Avenue School, circa 1910, along with a close-up of the students clustered at the main entrance, the most notable architectural feature of the building.
Laporte Avenue School Postmarked 1910.Laporte Avenue School Close-up, Postmarked 1910.
The Laporte Avenue School was razed in 1975 but the Laurel Street School, located east of College Avenue, continues to serve the school district as Centennial High School, with a new addition that doubled the size of the school.
Another set of twin elementary schools followed in 1919 – The George Washington and Abraham Lincoln Schools. The two schools marked a departure from the earlier, box-shaped schools. The buildings reflected an era of reform in education, exemplifying a move from the school as a place for moral inspiration to the school as a place efficient learning. Below is a photograph of the George Washington School, circa 1919, courtesy of the Fort Collins Archive.
George Washington School, c. 1919. Fort Collins Archive, H15893.
The schools are classified as “mutedly Craftsman” in architectural style. Architecturally, the buildings sported brackets and exposed rafter ends but the important design change was the interior, with smaller, more intimate classrooms arranged around a core of offices and a gymnasium/auditorium.
The George Washington School was located at 233 South Shields Street and is now the home of Colorado State University’s Early Childhood Center.
The Abraham Lincoln School, located at 501 East Elizabeth Street, changed names to Harris Elementary School in 1939 and is now the Harris Bilingual School.
By 1919, it was clear that Fort Collins needed a new high school but voters weren’t ready to support the construction of a new school. The north addition to the old high school was constructed as a compromise. The board kept pushing for a new high school and a committee was established to investigate the need for the school and possible sites. Voters slowly came around and in 1923, funding for the new school was approved.
Still, arguments persisted over the cost and the location of the proposed school. Finally, Louis Clark Moore, a prominent Fort Collins businessman and the treasurer of the school board, donated land to the district. The new high school would be built at 1400 Remington Street; a location many residents complained was too far out of town.
The Fort Collins High School opened in 1925. It was designed in the Colonial Revival style, with symmetrical wings extending from a central portico crowned by a white-painted cupola. Below is an image of the school shortly after completion.
Fort Collins High School, 1400 Remington St., 1925.
The building featured a cafeteria, a full kitchen, a library, and a modern auditorium. The portico consisted of slender and extremely tall Doric columns. Here are a couple more images of the school:
Fort Collins High School Portico, 1400 Remington St., 1925, Photograph by Mark Miller.Fort Collins High School, 1400 Remington St., 1935.
Used until the new Fort Collins High School on Timberline Road was built in 1995, it is now the Colorado State University Center for the Arts.
According to In the Hallowed Halls of Learning, the high school on Remington Street was the last Fort Collins’ school designed in a historically inspired style. Later schools were built in a modern or postmodern style.
Long before the lower canyon road was opened through the Big and Little Narrows, there was access to the upper canyon. Tie hacking, cutting and delivering railroad ties to keep up with 19th century expansion into the West, was the catalyst for development of roads through the upper canyon, but interest in the prospect of gold drove road-building as well. The road ran through Livermore and ended with a terrifying trip down Pingree Hill. The hill was so steep that teamsters would often cut a log to drag behind the wagon as a make-shift brake.
With a way to the upper canyon, Fort Collins businessmen started clamoring for an extension of the road to North Park, at the time part of Larimer County. A number of alternatives were proposed; the winner was the North Park Toll Road, incorporated in May 1879. Samuel B. Stewart was a member of the three-person board of directors, the man given the job of managing construction of a wagon road following the existing tie trails from the base of Pingree Hill past Chambers Lake, over Cameron Pass, and into North Park. By July 1880 the road was open for business, with connections to the new mining towns of Lulu City and Teller City.
Stewart was an entrepreneur. He believed travelers would flock to his toll road and realized the value of a hotel at the junction of Pingree Hill road and the canyon toll road. On March 4, 1880, the Fort Collins Courier announced that Stewart was putting the finishing touches on his hotel, complete with a large kitchen from which travelers could get something to eat, as well as beds for spending the night. Stables and sheds were also available so that stage lines could change out their tired horses. Stewart named the hotel the Rustic House, though most people shortened it to The Rustic, and the name carried over to the little town that sprang up around it. Quickly, Stewart was advertising both his toll road and his hotel, as shown in this advertisement from the November 25, 1882 Fort Collins Courier.
North Park Stage Line & Rustic House Advertisement, Fort Collins Courier, November 25, 1882.
The hotel was 24 feet by 31 feet and advertised as one and a half stories high. It was finished with board and batten siding (closely spaced boards, with narrow wood strips over the joints). Below is a real photo postcard of the hotel, dated August 1909, along with a close-up of the group on the porch for those of you who like period clothing.
Rustic House, August 1909.Rustic House Visitors, August 1909.
By August 1909, the Rustic had changed hands a few times and in 1909 it was owned by Nathan E. Moffit. If you are interested in a detailed history of the Rustic, make sure you see A Place in Time: The Legend of the Rustic Resort by Linda Arndt Leigh. Leigh tracks the ownership of the property from when Stewart opened the Rustic House until the devastating fire in 2008.
The reverse side of the postcard carries this message, “Here is a picture of some very interesting people we met at the Rustic. . . . Part of them said they were from Kansas.”
The Rustic House not only went through a number of changes in owners, but also in name and appearance. A big change occurred in the early 1930s when the new owners, Will and Alice Richardson, refaced the building with lodgepole pine slabs. They also added five rental cabins and changed the name to the Rustic Lodge. The building went through cycles of repair and disrepair until it was finally closed in 1969 and then torn down in 1978.
The Richardson’s also built and opened a small store and gas station on the south side of the road. It opened in 1932. Below is a photograph of the store and gas station after it was expanded in the late 1940s.
Rustic Resort, Poudre Canyon, Postmarked 1954. Photograph by Mark Miller.
According to Leigh, Charles and Iva Frost bought the resort in 1947 and, over the next few years, made a number of improvements. One of the improvements was an expansion of the store, adding a café on the west side of the structure and living quarters on the back. The message on the back of the postcard is from Pink and Velma Davis, who bought the facility in 1951. They called it the Rustic Resort.
Below are three images of the resort from approximately the same period.
Rustic Lodge, Poudre Canyon, c. 1954. Photograph by Mark Miller.
This is an unusual image of the resort, showing it from the river side.
Rustic Lodge Interior, Poudre Canyon, c. 1954. Photograph by Mark Miller.Rustic Resort Cabins, Poudre Canyon, c. 1954. Photograph by Mark Miller.
The lodge continued to change over time. Below is a photograph of it circa 1956. As you can see, the appearance has been modified significantly.
Rustic Resort, Poudre Canyon, c. 1956.
This is an advertising postcard, with the following information on the reverse side:
“Rustic Resort. 40 miles northwest of Fort Collins on Highway 14. Pink and Velma Davies, Bellvue, Colo.
“Altitude 7,200 feet. 13 housekeeping cabins on the bank of the Poudre River, where fishing is always good. Just the spot to enjoy a restful vacation or an exciting fishing trip. General Store, Souvenirs, Snack Bar and Dining Room.”
The resort’s final chapter closed in June 2008, when a fire destroyed the store, gas station and restaurant.
The Armstrong Hotel opened on April 7, 1923, on the northwest corner of South College Avenue and Olive Street, to serve the auto-tourists who were flooding westward as cars became cheaper and more reliable and roads more accessible. The Armstrong joined the Northern Hotel (see links at the end of this post) in lodging the tourists and business people visiting Fort Collins. Below is an image of the hotel shortly after it opened.
Armstrong Hotel, Ft. Collins. Unknown Photographer, c. 1923.
The Armstrong was built by investor Charles G. Mantz and his wife, Caroline. It was named after Caroline Mantz’s father, Andrew Armstrong, a pioneer builder of Fort Collins. The original plan called for a two-story building but, auto-tourism was growing so fast, Mantz added a third-floor, delaying the opening a few weeks. When it opened, the Armstrong was the tallest building in Fort Collins.
The ground floor contained the public rooms, including two dining rooms capable of seating 182 guests, and a number of retail businesses. The two upper floors sported 40 guest rooms. Below are two close-ups of the retail space.
Armstrong Hotel, Retail Space South, c. 1923.
The lobby entrance to the hotel was originally on the southeast corner of the building, behind the brick column, just as you enter Mugs Coffee Lounge today. You can see the sign for the Billiard Parlor running below the hotel windows but, I think, it was located in the basement of the hotel, accessed by the stairs on Olive Street.
Armstrong Hotel, Retail Space North, c. 1923.
The lonely car in the photograph is a 1922 Buick. Notice the little boy in the passenger seat. A barber shop sign runs below the windows but, again, I think it was in the basement. If you go back to the south end image, you can see the barber pole on the Olive Street side. Smith’s Sweets and what looks like a hat shop complete the retail line-up along College Avenue.
Here is another early photograph of the hotel.
Armstrong Hotel, Fort Collins, Colo. Photograph by Sanborn, c. 1928.
Sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s, an effort began to get the Armstrong Hotel listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Two arguments were made for its inclusion in a 1996 cultural resources survey. The first argument was an historical significance argument. “The Armstrong Hotel is historically significant for its direct association with the boom in automobile tourism that reached its zenith in the early 1920s, as well as for its role in the development of the College Avenue commercial district of Fort Collins.” The second argument was based on architecture. “The Armstrong Hotel is an outstanding local example of early 20th century hotel architecture, and it retains much of its original physical integrity.”
Examples of early 20th century commercial architecture are typically modest buildings, with patterned masonry surfaces, parapets at the roofline, and large rectangular windows arranged in groups. You can see in this photograph how well the Armstrong meets the architectural criteria of an early 20th century commercial building.
The effort was successful and the Armstrong Hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in August 2000.
Armstrong Hotel, Sanborn, c. 1928. Retail Space Close-Up.
As you can see in this close-up, the Armstrong is decorated in flags and banners, probably as part of a July 4 celebration. Smith’s Sweets is gone and Fishback Photos has taken its place. Fishback was a long time Fort Collins photographer, moving into the Armstrong in 1928 or 1929 and staying at that location into the mid-1960s.
The Armstrong Hotel Advertising Postcard, c. 1938.
This postcard was probably used by the hotel to advertise the Armstrong. Interestingly, nothing is mentioned about the accommodations of the hotel. The postcard is aimed at potential visitors coming to enjoy the Colorado outdoors. The small map features Rocky Mountain National Park and the words say, “A convenient base from which to make one, and two-day mountain and fishing trips.” The back of the card advertises the Armstrong as the “Gateway to Estes Park and [the] Poudre Canon,” and mentions trout fishing and big game hunting. There is no doubt who the Armstrong saw as their customer base.
Two changes are obvious in this image. First, a new sign is in place on the front of the building. It might have been the reason for a new photograph of the hotel. Also, a conical roof has been installed over the corner entrance.
Armstrong’s Masonry Pattern
The brick for the Armstrong is laid in a modified Flemish bond, consisting of five rows of red bricks laid lengthwise and a sixth row that alternates lengths of red brick with the ends of black bricks. The black brick is also used on the sills and lentils of the windows and for a decorative strip that extends above the third story windows. You can clearly see the decoration on the next image.
Hotel Armstrong, Color Image, c. 1957
It’s hard to miss the two cars in this photograph. On the left, is a 1957 Cadillac and, on the right, is a 1957 Corvette convertible. Also, the hotel sports another, much larger sign, which advertises “Family Rates.” Another big change is that the lobby door is now in the center of the building, right under the sign, and the Fort Collins Finance Company has taken over the corner position. Also, Fishback Studios now has a neat camera sign and Larry’s Coffee Shop is at the north end of the retail space.
You can see the black brick decorative line across the top of both the College Avenue and Olive Street facades. Also, there are four white cartouches, two on each of the College Avenue and Olive Street facades. A cartouche is a painted or low relief decorative element often used on commercial buildings of this period. Though I haven’t looked at them with binoculars, I’ve read that they have a floral or leaf design.
Armstrong Hotel Street Scene, c. 1963
.
Except for a short period during WWII, when the building served as a barracks for the soldiers taking classes at CSU, the building functioned as a hotel without interruption. But changes were coming. In the 1950s, the interstate highway system opened and I-25 took a lot of traffic and tourists from College Avenue and, during the 1960s, the city’s business center was shifting to the south, taking some of the hotel’s business customers. The Armstrong’s business dropped off and the hotel began to fall into disrepair. One article in the 1970s said it was “shabby, with dirt cheap rooms . . . and a rough crowd.”
In 1973, the hotel changed names. It became the Empire Motor Hotel. In 1979, it changed its name again and became the Mountain Empire Hotel. It also changed its business model and began renting its rooms as apartments. Below is a Fort Collins Archive photograph of the Mountain Empire Hotel.
Mountain Empire Hotel, c. 1988. Courtesy of the Fort Collins Archive (H16955)
By the mid-1990s, the hotel was described as a “flophouse” and it closed in the year 2000. It looked as if the long history of the Armstrong was over but along came Steve and Missy Levinger.
The Levinger’s bought the hotel in 2002 and began an almost two-year renovation project. On the outside, they repointed the brick work and replaced and repaired the windows. All their efforts were aimed at taking the hotel back to its best years. They installed new awnings to match the awnings they saw in historic photographs and they installed a reproduction of an earlier Armstrong Hotel sign. The sign required a special waiver but I’ll cover the sign and the interior changes in Part 2 of this post.
In June 2004, the Levinger’s reopened the Armstrong as a boutique hotel. Below are two photographs of it that I took in 2008.
Armstrong Hotel from Southeast, 2008. Photograph by M. E. McNeillArmstrong Hotel from Northeast, 2008. Photograph by M. E. McNeill
The awnings are striped and you can see similar awnings in the 1928 photograph by Sanborn and the sign is similar to the sign in the 1936 advertising postcard.
The renovation won several awards, including the Colorado Governor’s Award for Downtown Excellence. Recently the Levinger’s sold the hotel to a group of investors from Jackson, WY and it remains to be seen what the future holds for this wonderful building.
Next Sunday, in The Armstrong Hotel: Part 2, I’ll cover the Armstrong signs and share images of the interior of the building. Also, time permitting; I’m going to update a post I did on an 1877 photograph of Fort Collins by James Shipler. I recently received some information on the image from a Shipler family member that I think you’ll find interesting.
Finally, below are the links to the posts I did earlier on the Northern Hotel and to Part 2 of the Armstrong post.
Barbara Fleming wrote an article on Braiden Hall, at Colorado State University, that was published in Monday’s, August 7, 2017, Coloradoan. I have a few images of the building and decided to share them with you, using quotes from Barbara’s article. I hope you enjoy them.
“A successful Denver architect, who had settled there in 1914, [Eugene] Groves was innovative in his use of materials and varied architectural styles. He developed a long-standing relationship with CAC, for which he designed and built numerous structures including Ammons Hall . . .”
First Men’s Dormitory, Colorado State. Photograph by Mark Miller, circa 1953.
“Back in the late 1940s, when an influx of World War II veterans began coming to the college on the GI Bill, housing was in short supply. While re-purposed Quonset huts helped house families, single men had no place to live on campus. So in 1948, Braiden Hall was built as the first men’s dormitory . . .”
Braiden Hall, Now as the Student Services Building. Photograph July 2017 by M. E. McNeill.
“Now, upgraded, it is the Students Services building. A newer dormitory . . . was built in more conventional style. Today, [Braiden Hall] sits sedately among several other Groves buildings and many newer structures, intriguing the curious with its history.”
You can read Barbara’s complete article by clicking the link below:
Fort Collins Images 