News Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Fort Collins Museum of Discovery

Thank you Comet Chicken!

Posted on October 16, 2017October 18, 2018 by Lesley Struc in Archive & Collections, Local History, News

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!

Bowling in Fort Collins

Posted on August 8, 2017March 4, 2021 by Jenny Hannifin in Adults, Archive & Collections, Local History, News

According to Evadene Swanson, “Lindenmeier’s ‘Board of Trade’ on College near the Opera House had a bowling alley in 1880” (Fort Collins Yesterdays, page 136). Does that surprise you? It surprised me! By the late 1800s, prosperous cities in the USA were installing regulation-size bowling lanes, often subsidized by churches, YMCAs, firehouses, and fraternal organizations. I dug up a few Fort Collins bowling photos to share with you – none are from the 1880s, but I hope you enjoy them nonetheless.

Though undated, this shot is clearly from an era when bowlers had serious sartorial standards: Behold the Bowling League Champs – BPOE Elks Fraternal Organization, Fort Collins.

This shot from circa 1928 shows the 100 block of North College Avenue (looking south). In addition to the Collins Cafe, Sugar Bowl, and Marshall Cafeteria, the Bowling sign is clearly visible in the photo.

This 1950s-ish image of the Hutchison Pharmacy ladies bowling team (Fort Collins) highlights the pharmacy’s advertising as well as the women’s splendid hairstyles.

The Colorado State Bowling Tournament in 1960 was held in Fort Collins, Colorado. Identified here are, left to right: Ray Carpenter, D. Weigand, Doc Carroll, Floyd Headlee, and taller-than-average-fella “unknown.”

And last but not least, here are two cool cats from 1969.

Here’s the caption from the May 12, 1969 Coloradoan: “State Doubles Champs: Jack Hall, 16, of 1030 Akin Street and Margee Deering, 14, of 120 Tedmon Drive teamed together to knock down 1,278 pins and win the 1969 Colorado Junior Mixed Doubles championship. The two were among more than 100 Fort Collins junior bowlers honored Sunday night during the annual Youth Bowling Association awards banquet.”

Volunteer Spotlight: Autumn S.

Posted on July 27, 2017June 8, 2018 by Laurel Drasner in News, Spotlight

Name: Autumn

Position at FCMoD: Gallery Hosting with an emphasis on the Music Zone

When you started volunteering here: September 2016

Hobbies/Interests: I love to play electric bass!

Hometown: I was born and raised right here in Fort Collins!

Current/previous occupation: I am currently a high school student. I’m going into 10^th grade at Poudre High School.

Favorite book: My favorite book is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Favorite vacation memory: My favorite vacation was going to my Aunt’s wedding in Italy last summer! Southern Italy, in particular, was awesome.

One thing you want people to know about you: Fun fact: I just won a radio contest for the Best Youth Bass Player though the School of Rock! I get to play bass with the School of Rock house band at the Rock & Roll Car Show in August.

Favorite thing about volunteering at FCMoD: I love the Music Garage, and the Music Zone, in general. I love having the time to learn new things myself too- for example, I just learned to play Super Mario on the Xylophone!

The NEW Fort Collins History Connection is LIVE!

Posted on July 25, 2017July 25, 2017 by Lesley Struc in Archive & Collections, Local History, News, Spotlight

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)

Improved zoom on scanned photos and maps

Embedded audio player for online oral histories

Enhanced online exhibits that explore Fort Collins’ People, Places, and Things, such as “Auntie” Stone, the Lindenmeier Archaeological Site, and the Fort Collins Trolley

Straightforward Research Request Form– go on, ask us a question!

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

Volunteer Spotlight: Amy P.

Posted on June 26, 2017April 10, 2019 by Laurel Drasner in News, Spotlight

Name: Amy

Position at FCMoD: Animal Encounters, School Group Host, & Public Programs

When you started volunteering here: October 2016

Hobbies/Interests: I enjoy road bicycling, hiking in the mountains, photography (nature & landscape), gardening, and birding

Hometown: I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan for 30+ years

Current/previous occupation: I was a Pre-K teacher for 25 years, working primarily with kids 4-5 years old. I retired 3 years ago.

Favorite book: My favorite kid’s book is Owen by Kevin Henkes, and my favorite adult book is The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko, which is about the Grand Canyon.

Favorite vacation memory: We took a trip to the Canadian Rockies with my family, and we got to hike Sentinel Pass and see Moraine Lake. Everyone enjoyed it so much!

One thing you want people to know about you: I love dogs, and I say hello to just about every dog and dog owner I see while I’m hiking!

Favorite thing about volunteering at FCMoD: I like that the volunteer program is well-organized and that we are well-supported by staff.

Tomorrow’s Robot Pop Stars, and Today’s Elementary Students

Posted on June 15, 2017June 15, 2017 by Kristin Rush in News, Programs, Spotlight

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, over 65% of today’s elementary school students will have jobs that do not yet exist. Wow! These same young students will also be the first humans to set foot on Mars, based on NASA’s mission schedule. It is exciting to dream about the major technological and societal changes coming in our lifetimes.

And if today’s students will have jobs that do not yet exist, what about the jobs that currently exist? What about the jobs that you, or I, hold right now?

Scholars at the University of Oxford recently surveyed 352 of the world’s leading researchers in artificial intelligence (AI), to learn when AI employees would become better—and less expensive—than human employees in many job fields.

In the next 10 years, according to these researchers, AI employees will surpass human employees in:

* translating languages (by 2024)

* writing high school essays (by 2026)

* driving trucks (by 2027)

* generating a Top 40 pop song (by 2027)

It will take less than 5 years for AIs to outperform humans in Angry Birds (by 2018) or the World Series of Poker (by 2019), for that matter.

That said, human employees will remain better than AI employees in many job fields for the coming decades. Still, in the next 40 years, AIs will surpass humans in:

* working in retail (by 2031)

* writing a New York Times bestselling book (2049)

* working as a surgeon (by 2053)
These researchers believe AIs will outperform humans in all job fields within 45 years! But, as the MIT Technology Review notes, predictions of 40+ years are not always accurate. Cost-effective energy fusion is predicted to occur in the next 40 years—but it was also predicted to occur in the next 40 years when first explored… over 50 years ago.

Most people have a working life of 40 years. This working life-span is increasing to 45 or 50 years, though, as adults continue working beyond retirement. So, if you are an adult today, it is unlikely that your job as a truck driver, retail salesperson, or even surgeon will be fully supplanted by AI employees before your retirement. But what of today’s young students?

Here at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, we are asking these questions. We discover, often in conversation with students, many new and insightful answers. In our educational programs, youth build 21st century skills, to help them succeed in our changing world. Rather than focus on single disciplines, youth develop cross-disciplinary skills like critical thinking, creativity, and initiative through hands-on exhibits and experiences. As a result, museum visitors are better able to handle the incredible technological and societal advances on our horizon.

But we still wonder—could AI employees ever run a museum? Guess we’ll find out!

Explore More:

“Experts Predict When AI Will Exceed Human Performance.” MIT Technology Review (5/31/17).

“When Will AI Exceed Human Performance?” Cornell University Library (5/30/17).

“How AI Is Transforming the Workplace.” The Wall Street Journal (3/10/17).

“A Robot May Be Training to Do Your Job. Don’t Panic.” The New York Times (9/10/16).

“Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills.” Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Growing “up” – Fort Collins’ first skyscrapers

Posted on June 7, 2017March 4, 2021 by Jenny Hannifin in Archive & Collections, Local History, News, Social Studies, Spotlight, Uncategorized

These days, a drive around Fort Collins always includes orange traffic cones, route deviations, and a horizon line crossed with a building crane. We are growing, aren’t we? Fort Collins residents of the 1960s felt the pressure of growth as well:

“City planners were hard pressed to keep up with the city’s growth, especially in the rapidly developing suburbs. Fort Collins’ population almost tripled between 1950 and 1970. New industries, such as Kodak and Aqua Tec, were locating in the area, attracting more people. The Chamber of Commerce reported that industrial employment rose from 1,068 in 1960 to 3,411 in 1969. Builders tried to keep pace with the growth as all-time records were set for private construction. A consequence of these efforts was the building of Fort Collins’ first skyscrapers. The twelve-story First National Bank Tower and the eleven-story Home Federal Savings Building (now Norwest) were built in 1968.” (From “Timeline 1960”, www.history.fcgov.com )

Plans for First National Bank’s twelve-story “condominium” office building at 205 West Oak were publicly announced on November 19, 1967; less than two years later, Fort Collins residents celebrated its completion. According to the Denver Post, “An estimated 12,000 persons attended the recent one week long celebration opening the First National Bank’s 12 story building” (7-6-1969 4/5).

Here’s a shot of the “new” building from June 16, 1969:

Here’s a ribbon-cutting picture taken at the opening, also from June 16, 1969:

This aerial shot shows the cityscape northeast of the new tower:

Building is a messy process. To actualize this (a rendering of the “new” courthouse, circa 1969):

You gotta go through a lot of this: and

Art as Science: Early Botanical Artists

Posted on May 6, 2017February 18, 2021 by Jenny Hannifin in Any Age, Archive & Collections, Featured Exhibits, News, Uncategorized, Visual Arts

RARE II – at FCMoD from May 6 to August 6 – is an exhibit of contemporary botanical illustrations depicting globally imperiled plants found in Colorado. Members of the Rocky Mountain Society of Botanical Artists created these works of art using the Master List of Rare Plants (produced by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program). I hope you have a chance to see this rare combination of scientific accuracy, aesthetic appeal, and technical mastery.

Which brings me to my subject today: a glimpse at the role botanical illustration played in the early history of science.

Surgeons traveling with the Roman army – including Greeks Dioscorides (circa 40-90 AD) and Galen (131-200 AD) – compiled herbals (text + drawings) that remained the primary materia medica texts for centuries (by some accounts, at least 1500 years). Herbalism traditions were preserved through the middle ages in the monasteries of Britain and Europe, where monks copied and translated works of Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Galen, and non-Western scientists like Ibn Sina (aka Avicenna). The advent of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century created unprecedented access to mass-produced books, some of which included botanical illustration. (Details in this paragraph drawn from the University of Virginia’s Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/herbs/brief-history/ ).

So, Printing press + Woodcut illustrations (later lithographs) = Beautiful botanical books of both scientific and aesthetic value.

For more details about the background of botanical illustration, check out these folks:

16^th century, Leonhart Fuchs
17^th century, Maria Sibylla Merian
18^th century, Pierre-Joseph Redouté
19^th century, Pieter de Pannemaeker (Ghent) and Emily Stackhouse (Cornwall)

And enjoy the Rare II exhibit!

Volunteer Spotlight: Pat Tvede

Posted on May 4, 2017May 31, 2017 by Laurel Drasner in News, Spotlight, Uncategorized

Name: Pat Tvede

Position at FCMoD: Research Assistant in the Archive

When you started volunteering here: April 2011 (started at the Landmark Preservation Commission)

Hobbies/Interests: I love to knit and read!

Hometown: I grew up on trains, so I lived everywhere!

Current/previous occupation: I was a teacher, a supervisor, and a gemologist

Favorite book: I can’t think of a favorite book, but my favorite author is PD James. She’s a mystery writer.

Favorite vacation memory: There was this really neat pool in California. It was huge, and it had slides! There was also a creek through town, but it was ice runoff. I jumped in, and it was like an ice cube!

One thing you want people to know about you: I have survived for many years!

Favorite thing about volunteering at FCMoD: I love the people here! The personnel are very helpful and knowledgeable.