The Museum is Recognized for its Community Support for ISTAR Camp
We are honored to be recognized as a recipient of the TILT Award for Exceptional Achievement in Service-Learning Community Partner from Colorado State University for ISTAR Camp.
ISTAR (Indigenous, Science, Technology, Arts and Resiliency) Camp started in 2020 and brings together Native American students and their families to connect with traditional Native technologies, science, and arts. Led by CSU Ethnic Studies Department faculty, student mentors, and community leaders, ISTAR’s culturally responsive programming centers community-identified goals in its curriculum.
Hands-on learning leverages the assets and physical space of the museum as well as the proximity to the Poudre River and Lee Martinez Park. After positive feedback from participants and families, programs now extend throughout the year for families to deepen connections through a variety of culturally-centered gatherings and programs.
ISTAR is a deeply collaborative community effort, and we are honored to play a supportive role. Thank you to all involved.
By Lesley Struc, Curator of the Archive at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery
I spent some time recently reading Fort Collins local Mary Hottel’s diary from Book I (1901-1906) of the Hottel collection. Her work shares life experiences that are over 100 years old, giving us a glimpse of what it was like to be the daughter of Fort Collins’ first millionaire.
Her father Benjamin Hottel’s life is quite a story too, but one of starting up. He came to Fort Collins from Virginia in 1877 and worked in milling and developed a sugar factory, later becoming the president of Poudre Valley National Bank.
I only made it about halfway through this first book and found these gems from Mary’s life. They are insightful and humorous all these years later, so I’ve included some of my favorite quotes.
This collection is such a treasure trove, offering a personal look of the life of a very busy woman in Fort Collins at the turn of the 20th century. So far volunteers have scanned five dairies and transcribed seven – there are 14 in all, covering the years of 1901-1925.
Thursday, December 11, 1902
Chick [Charles Davis, her boyfriend at the time]& I strolled downtown, then made fudge on our return – he had an old sweater on and was afraid to come in until the family went away.
Saturday March 21, 1903
Chick & I got in a big crowd at the Columbian musical tonight – The program was fine – Coming home
in the wash – ahem!!
we struck a regular blizzard & nearly froze stiff – Through pure ackwardness, [sic] while making fudge I spilled a lot of it on Chicks coat & felt too cheap for words – Hope it will all come out
Saturday, May 27, 1904
Went to the H.S. Alumni dance at Odd Fellows Hall tonight with Aida Ault & Ethel Avery. There was some sort of a programme first & then during the dance Roy came – So Mary Ann had an escort home – Considering the scarcity of men we had a real good time.
Friday, October 13, 1905
This afternoon Warren Bristol called & we had a good chat over old times. Tonight Bob Tedmon & I ploughed through mud & rain galore with Anna Tedmon & Mr Baker of New York to the college dance at Odd Fellows. Had a corking time & just giggled continually. Lets pray I’ll still have a few more good times before I die. [Mary was 22 years old at the time of this writing]
Tuesday, November 7, 1905
After I made seven calls this afternoon, Roy stopped in for a long chat & to inform me had to work so hard wouldn’t be down until Sunday. Oh he is the worst tease & his ability seems to be on the increase Anna Tedmon appeared this noon with an invitation for me to accompany acrowd of ladies to see the play “Wyoming” tonight [at the Opera House]. But upon discovering that the party was to be composed almost entirely of married women, I refused.
FoCoMX has been a landmark event for the Colorado music scene for 13 years, and the weekend of April 22 and 23 is the return of FoCoMX for the first time since 2019. With stages throughout the city, Fort Collins will be a music mecca for all things live and local, and we are pleased to host the most music of the weekend. Fort Collins Museum of Discovery will have three stages of music going throughout the festival, starting with a stellar Live From the Dome lineup on Friday, followed by an entire day and evening of music on Saturday.
Here is rundown of all the happenings at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery during FoCoMX. We will have our entire team on board to help craft a wonderful experience for you!
Friday, April 22: we are hosting five bands at the OtterBox Digital Dome Theater.
Saturday, April 23: five more bands from the Dome, plus six hours of music at our Big Backyard Youth Stage and at an Artist Discovery Stage at Woodward Special Exhibition Gallery.
On site: Blast N Scrap will be leading arts projects Saturday in our Big Backyard. Blast N Scrap is a nonprofit organization which supports young and emerging artists with performance and workshop space to help advance social inclusion and environmental sustainability in the arts.
On site: Launch Skate will be leading skating demos with the FoCoMX crowd on Saturday. Through skateboarding, Launch Skate helps develop leadership skills through volunteerism and reinforcing meaningful community connections.
Ice cream: On Saturday, local favorites Walrus Ice Cream will dish out great treats.
Plus, free entry to the museum gallery during performances on Saturday from 2 – 8 p.m.
And last but not least, see our very own Nick Duarte at Washington’s on Friday at 5 p.m. with his band Post Paradise and Forrester Tamkun who will lead his band Write Minded at the Aggie Theater for a midnight performance as Saturday night becomes Sunday.
The fall of 1918 was a fearful and exhausting time for the residents of Fort Collins. Worldwide, according to Laura Spinney in Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and how it Changed the World, most of the deaths caused by the “Spanish Flu” happened in just a thirteen-week period from September through December 1918. Government authorities most everywhere were overwhelmed, uninformed and unsure, crippled by nursing shortages, lack of hospital beds and local physicians overburdened with their own patients.
In Fort Collins, doctors were supposed to make daily reports of influenza cases and deaths to city officials so that people like the city physician, Dr. Gooding, and Mayor Fred Stover could make informed policies, but the city and county doctors were too busy tending to ill patients to make those reports (Fort Collins Express, October 23). Ruth Margrave, in an oral history recorded in 1974, recalled that her father, Dr. Wilkin, hired a driver for his car that fall as he “…didn’t drive at all during that flu epidemic. He just slept between calls, between patients.” Besides stress and exhaustion, doctors and nurses were risking exposure to the flu by caring for the sick and at least one Fort Collins doctor, Dr. D’Armond, died from contracting the flu. The Weekly Courier called Dr. D’Armond’s death a “sacrifice to the service of humanity.” (October 24).
There were, of course, other flu deaths in Fort Collins during the fall of 1918. Dr. Lory of the agricultural college, lost many members of his sister’s family, including his three-year-old twin nieces (The Weekly Courier, November 29). Influenza victims often included youths, and people moved to Fort Collins to start school, or parents and professionals in their late twenties and early thirties. The writers on staff at The Weekly Courier were clearly bothered by the death of Miss Marhon Sperry, an operator for the telephone company in town, as seen in their early November column about influenza deaths.
Even with all the illness, death, pain, sorrow, and exhaustion that the people of Fort Collins dealt with through the fall and early winter of 1918, the city was relatively lucky when it came to the numbers of those sick and deaths, although perhaps not known at the time. Current twenty-first century estimates for cases during the epidemic have worldwide an average of one in three people got sick with the flu, while somewhere between “2.5 and 5 percent of the global population” died from the illness. (Laura Spinney, p. 4). The numbers in Fort Collins show a much lower death rate.
In his Annual Report at the end of July 1919, Mayor Stover gave that the total number of cases from the influenza epidemic “slightly exceeded 1,500.” (Fort Collins Courier, July 29). Some 1,100 of those cases happened in October and November of 1918. With a population hovering around 8,500, the infection rate was closer to one in five, rather than one in three. Deaths were also less likely, as Mayor Stover did not bother to provide a number for those who died in his annual report, rather just expressing sorrow at the loss of life that had happened. (A Coloradoan article from April 16, 2020 estimated 150 deaths from the fall and winter.) A caveat- the numbers given for illness and deaths throughout the epidemic in Fort Collins do not often include cases that happened at the agricultural college.
Although Fort Collins did have lower infection and death rates throughout the epidemic than other places, the comfort we can see in numbers looking back over a hundred years likely did not exist for those living through the epidemic. Even if residents of Fort Collins understood at the time that their cases numbers were relatively low, numbers, in and of themselves, can do little to override personal experience. Of the oral histories we have in the Archives that mention the 1918 flu, one stands out especially. Interviewed in 1981, Grace Davis recalled that her mother had sent her to check on some neighbors. Grace found the husband so sick that he was unaware that his wife had died in bed next to him. “It was terrible. It was really bad. The 1918 flu.” Grace told the interviewer.
For a year, we have hosted musicians throughout the area to perform Live From The Dome at The Otterbox Digital Dome Theater. Fort Collins Museum of Discovery is proud to give musicians a space to play – with shows highlighting our diverse music and arts scene.
Over the past year, we have featured musicians from so many genres, including:
More Than Physics: The Fort Collins band combines acoustic instrumentation with Handpan and Tabla drumming, all enhanced by stunning visuals in this performance.
Kuza: A South African born artist, Kuza is influenced by Avante-Pop, Trip-Hop, Electronic Music, and Spiritual styles.
Sara Slaton and the Great Perhaps: An Arkansas native, Sara Slaton taught herself to play guitar in the shadow of the Ozarks before she founding – and fronting – the Colorado trio, Edison, earning accolades far and wide.
SAMBOYGER: SAMBOYGER, based in Aurora, blends pop, alternative rock and electronica, recently releasing an EP, We Peaked @17.
Liz Barnez: The Colorado Music Hall of Fame member moved to Colorado in the late 1980’s and has been a mainstay in that music community since then. Her Live From the Dome performance is an intimate treat, showcasing her diverse talent as an artist and songwriter.
Miranda Fling: Miranda Fling is the inaugural Sonic Spotlight winner, celebrating the best young talent in Colorado music, and pulls inspiration from indie, pop, and folk music.
Cary Morin: A mainstay of local and national music scenes, Cary Morin crafts an inimitable combination of blues, bluegrass, jazz, jam, reggae, and dance.
Frail Talk: Frail Talk’s debut indie-folk album, New Creation Myths, springs up from the dirt with spiraling growth, ready to welcome every listener with daydream-love.
Hannah Rodriguez: Hannah Rodriguez’s soulful vocals and jazz-influenced musicianship is raising her profile as one of the young talents to watch in the community.
Miguel Aviña: Best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the band iZCALLi, Miquel Aviña is rightly known as one of the key artists of the Rock En Tu Idioma (RETI) movement in Colorado.
Kid Astronaut: Drawing inspiration from multi-dimensional world of Marvel Comics, Denver’s Kid Astronaut builds a universe of music, film, and art that is all his own.
Companion: The Fort Collins based duo of identical twin sisters Sophia and Jo Babb take a nuanced approach to songwriting that feels at once lighthearted and weighted with palpable empathy.
Live From The Dome is made possible through the generosity of the Bohemian Foundation.