I had to drive up to Fort Collins last week to have the two upstairs bedrooms in my sister Susan's townhouse measured for new carpeting. I was told the carpet measurer would arrive between 8:00 and 5:00, but received a call just before 9:00 that he would be there around noon. With 3 hours to kill, I drove to Old Town to take some photos. One of the places I stopped at was the Old Fort Collins Heritage Park, where I took the photograph on the left of the Auntie Elizabeth Stone Cabin. It was built in 1864 next to the newly relocated Camp Collins, an outpost established to guard travelers heading to Oregon on the Overland Trail from attacks by Native Americans. Auntie Elizabeth and her husband built the cabin next to the camp and ran the dining hall there. It was cold as hell that morning, and I had to wonder what it must have been like to live in that cabin during the winter. Camp Collins was closed in 1867 after it became apparent Native Americans in the area had no intention of attacking anyone, but by then, a new town had grown up around it.
Auntie Elizabeth became quite a civic booster in Fort Collins, and passed away in 1895 at the age of 94. Just 6 years later, the corner of Linden and Jefferson Streets near where that cabin and Camp Collins once stood looked like it does in the photograph on the right. This is now the heart of Old Town Fort Collins, and contains numerous bars, restaurants, and a variety of small, independently owned retail shops. Granted, not too many people were out and about that day because of the cold. In fact, I found them all later crowded into the Starbucks on the first floor of the Great Northern Hotel trying to get warm. Regardless, Fort Collins is a really nice town, a wonderful part of Colorado, and it is no wonder that when pioneers on the Overland Trail passed by, many of them said "to hell with Oregon, let's stay here."
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