Thank you Comet Chicken!

We’re so delighted to be Comet Chicken’s Tip Jar recipient for the month of October! You can enjoy some delicious food and support FCMoD at the same time!

We thought it would be fun to comb through some of our local historical resources here at the Archive at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery to uncover some of the history of Comet Chicken’s location at 126 West Mountain Avenue.

By checking the 1886 Sanborn Fire Insurance map, we can see that the location (in blue) was a grocery, flour, and feed store, and jutted up next to a roller skating rink!

By 1918, the block has filled in with more buildings, and 126 West Mountain was a grocery store alongside a notions and wallpaper shop.

Here’s a nifty view of the area from the 1920s. Note the trolley tracks running down the center of Mountain Avenue.

By 1955, the building was home to the Bea & Beryl Shop, a children’s clothing store owned by Beatrice Shoberg and Beryl Hess.

A Larimer County tax assessor card from 1969 shows that the address had become the Household Finance Corp, a loan company managed by J.W. Giles. The façade of the building had changed quite a bit to be more “mod.”

After hosting a copying company and other office-oriented businesses through the 1980s and 1990s, the location was outfitted as a restaurant about 16 years ago. Today, we welcome Comet Chicken to this historic location, and thank them for their support of FCMoD!

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A Pioneer Banquet

How do three different kinds of cake (chocolate, white, and spiced) served along “Pine Apple Sorbet” sound to you? Yummy!

Well, it probably tasted great to the 150 members of the Fort Collins Pioneer Association who attended the 3rd annual banquet of the association on February 4, 1909.

We have the program from that event here at the Local History Archive, pictured below:

  

The menu sounds as intriguing as the lecture  program, which featured tales by Mrs. John Coy, Charles Ramer, and other early residents of Fort Collins. The event was summed up a few days later in the February 10, 1909 edition of the Fort Collins Weekly Courier:

“…they had laughed with each other till the tears came over the jokes and witticisms of the speakers and had absorbed with breathless interest the graphically told stories of early day adventures, dangers and privations met with and endured when the Cache la Poudre valley was a howling wilderness.”

Read the entire article here!

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Remembering the 1997 Spring Creek Flood

July 28, 2017 marks 20 years since Fort Collins experienced the one of the biggest natural disasters in its history.

A slow moving storm cell on July 27-28, 1997 stalled over Fort Collins and dumped 14.5 inches of rain in 31 hours creating flash flooding that wreaked havoc on parts of Fort Collins. One of the hardest hit places was the Spring Creek area west of College Avenue. Debris clogged a railroad underpass which caused water to back up into a Johnson Mobile Home Park where 5 people were killed.

Flood waters also damaged numerous buildings on the campus of CSU including the basement and first floor of the library. In the aftermath of the disaster the City of Fort Collins implemented extensive flood mitigation planning that has shaped the landscape of Fort Collins. This work resulted in Fort Collins avoiding the extensive damage that ravaged much of northern Colorado during the 2013 floods.

Spring Creek Flood Resources

  • The Follow the Flood Event and Remembrance Ceremony is taking place on July 28th at Creekside Park beginning at 6:30 pm. Flood Education Day is July 29 at Spring Park. Learn more about both events here.
  • You can also learn more about the flood at the Fort Collins History Connection.
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The NEW Fort Collins History Connection is LIVE!

We’re pleased to announce that the newly-redesigned Fort Collins History Connection website is now LIVE and ready for you to explore! This website is collaboration between the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery and the Poudre River Public Library, representing thousands of hours of effort by staff and volunteers to make local history accessible and fun for everyone! It’s the Archive that’s open 24 hours a day.

Some cool new features of the site include:

  • Responsive design that looks sharp on your desktop, laptop, tablet, and phone

 

  • Easy download of scanned images (up to 1000×1000 pixels)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Start exploring the new site here. We hope you discovery something new *and* old!

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Archive Fun: Great Pranks Edition!

Today, a 1965 CSU alumnus stopped by the Archive to dig up an article from his college days. On April 21st, 1963, five members of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity decided to go to a showing of the new Hitchcock film, “The Birds,” with a little something up their sleeves.

Smuggled in the jackets of these young Greeks were several dead pigeons. These young men waited until the part of the film when the birds start attacking, then began tossing the dead pigeons onto the unsuspecting audience. The Coloradoan reported it to be “near pandemonium.”

It seems these boys pulled off quite the coo…er, um, coup.

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