Prominent Women in Fort Collins History

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Ages 9-12, Archive & Collections, Local History, News, Social Studies, Teens, Women's History

Post written by Alex Ballou, Marketing Assistant. 

Prominent Women in Fort Collins History

Every year we celebrate Women’s History Month in March by recognizing the contributions of women throughout history. This year for Women’s History Month, Fort Collins Museum of Discovery is highlighting the accomplishments of seven prominent women in Fort Collins History, whose stories are preserved in the Archive here at the museum. Learn more about Clara Ray, Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone, Inga Allison, Jovita Vallecillo Lobato, Charlene Tresner, Leonore (Nora) Rice Miller, and Phyllis Rosabonheur Greene Mattingly.

Clara Ray (1899-1987)

Clara Ray served as a pediatric nurse from 1929 to 1972 at the Poudre Valley Memorial Hospital. In those early years at what was called the old Poor Farm, Clara stoked fires in the coal-burning stoves and cleaned rooms as well as caring for patients. In those days, the nursing “staff” worked essentially on duty 24/7.

If there was an emergency night surgery, one of them assisted; when a patient was critically ill, they took turns napping and tending the patient. Clara could always be found rocking a young child to sleep. Clara served many at the Hospital.

 

Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone (1801-1895)

Elizabeth Stone, born in Hartford, Connecticut, would travel a long way in her life to make her home in Fort Collins, Colorado. Elizabeth Stone became a local legend as our own cities very own Founding Mother. Auntie Stone was famous for her energy, and she acquired her nickname of “Auntie” from serving on the frontier with soldiers in the mess hall.

Stone had many accomplishments in her life – she was beloved in her own time, and still is today. She started Lindell Mills, the town’s first flour mill. She was in the hotel business. And today, Auntie Stone’s very own historic cabin is currently located at the Heritage Courtyard on Mathews Street. She continues to inspire history interpreters, educational programs, and many more!

 

Inga Allison (1876-1962)

Inga was known for her contributions to academia. She joined the Home Economics department at Fort Collins’ Colorado Agricultural College in 1908, at a time when several faculty members were starting to study the unique effects of high altitude on both crop growth and food preparation. Inga conducted active research in food preparation and preservation without laboratory facilities. Allison entered academia via research and natural sciences and became the head of the Home Economics Department, expanding the course of women’s education.

Next time you successfully bake a pan of brownies in Fort Collins that doesn’t develop a sinkhole in the middle, it will probably be because you considered some of the science developed by Dr. Allison.

 

Jovita Vallecillo Lobato (1908-2005)

Jovita was born in Fort Collins in 1908. Jovita’s parents worked in the sugar beet fields, and they understood that the way to a better life was through education, and thus encouraged Jovita and her younger brother Salvador to go to college. This was not the reality for most parents in Jovita’s community at the time – many children were needed to help support the family and work in the fields rather than go to school.

Jovita graduated from Fort Collins High School in 1932. She was the first Mexican-American student to graduate from public school in Fort Collins. Following high school, she enrolled at CSU (known at the time as Colorado Agricultural College) and became the first Mexican-American to graduate from CSU in 1936 – with degrees in economics and sociology, and a minor in education.

There are no identifiable photos of Jovita in either the Fort Collins High “Lambkin” yearbooks, or the CSU “Silver Spruce” yearbooks. The only time her name is mentioned is one instance in the 1937 Silver Spruce under the heading “Additional Seniors.” While there’s no evidence that these omissions of Jovita were intentionally malicious, they do follow a pattern of marginalized people often being invisible or overlooked in the historical record. Additionally, these omissions make people like Jovita difficult to research – most of the information gathered is from more recent newspaper clippings and the small number of materials that her family donated to the Archive.

 

Charlene Tresner (1918-1990)

Charlene was a lover of history. Charlene was assistant editor of the student newspaper at Fort Collins High School and she attended Colorado A&M, present-day CSU, where she was feature editor of the Collegian. Charlene also collected thousands of photographs and other archival materials, storing items under her bed until the local history section of the library was completed.

So many people have worked to make the Archive what it is over the years, but Charlene truly was the one who started it all. Charlene secured grant funding to start a program interviewing long-time residents of Fort Collins. Aided by members of the Fort Collins Historical Society and her personal connections, Charlene assembled and organized an amazing resource of thousands of photos and she wrote many historical articles for local news as well as her book Streets of Fort Collins. Charlene’s work can still be seen all over the Archive today. The Archive at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery considers her a patron saint, as she spent years of her life collecting histories that continue to tell the story of Fort Collins.

 

Leonore (Nora) Rice Miller (1868-1959)

Leonore came to Fort Collins in 1893 and taught 6th and 7th grade at the Old Franklin School. But Nora had attended Michigan Medical School for two years, and, after a brief hiatus,  finished out her medical degree at the University of Colorado Medical School. She started her Fort Collins medical practice in 1908. At that time, automobiles had not come into common use, so Dr. Miller often traveled long distances by horse-drawn buggy to reach her patients. Much of her practice consisted of maternity cases, at a time when most babies were born at home rather than in a hospital.

The shortage of school teachers during WWII called her back to her earlier profession, and 1942 found her teaching physics, math and engineering at a high school in Montana.  She retired from teaching in 1949; died in 1959; and is buried in Grandview Cemetery. Although Nora transitioned her practice to other areas and began to teach after WWII, she is noted as an ambitious and inspiring woman to those pursing and involved in the medical field.

 

Phyllis Rosabonheur Greene Mattingly (1916-2000)

Phyllis came to Fort Collins in 1949. After a stint hosting a talk show on KCOL, Phyllis became an internationally recognized handwriting analyst. How does a woman in the 1970s become a graphoanalyst? Mattingly got professional training at the University of Chicago. Using her professional skills, she verified and interpreted wills, diaries and other documents, including – one of Adolf Hitler’s. She used her expertise in such varied areas as custody cases, pre-marriage compatibility consultations, and hiring decisions.

She taught handwriting analysis in Australia, lectured to the United Kingdom Chapter of Graphoanalysis, was included in the 1988 and 1989 editions of Who’s Who of the World’s Professional Women, and in 1987 was the International Graphoanalyst of the Year. The prosecution in the O.J. Simpson trial hired her to analyze handwriting of witnesses. She told them not to use Mark Fuhrman, but they did anyway, and he turned out to be an unreliable witness. Mattingly’s other claim to fame was as Fort Collins’ Welcome Lady. She brought newcomers gifts, coupons, and information about the town. She supported many diverse FoCo institutions like the symphony, the library, the Christian Science Church, the Women’s Choral Group, the local AARP chapter, and Easter Seals.

These women, and many more, have made history for being who they were. They are remembered for their accomplishments, as well as for the historical impact they have made on Fort Collins. Happy #WomensHistoryMonth!

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Taming of the Show: Processing a Local Fort Collins Theatre Collection

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Archive & Collections, Drama & Theater Arts, Local History

Post written by Carly Boerrigter, History Graduate Student at Colorado State University, Fall 2018 Intern at FCMoD

Taming of the Show: Processing a Local Fort Collins Theatre Collection

This past December, I had the pleasure of visiting England and seeing a live performance of Macbeth at the Barbican Theater in London. The whole evening was at the beckoning of my partner who has been a longtime fan of Shakespeare.

However, for me, seeing Shakespeare performed live in front of me was colored by my own experiences with plays, not performing in them, but examining them in the Archive at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery.

I was thinking of the tireless costume design, the sound bites running in the background, the director’s notes that surely filled the margins of the script, the artists involved in creating the play’s poster, and the photographer who surreptitiously had to take photos of the performance unfolding.

I was analyzing these seemingly minute aspects of the play, first of all because Shakespeare continues to boggle me and more importantly because for the past three months, I helped inventory a collection of documents from a local Fort Collins theatre company, OpenStage Theatre. In 1973, Bruce and Denise Freestone started OpenStage, which still performs in the local area today. In OpenStage Theatre’s almost 50 years of existence, it has put on plays by Arthur Miller, Oscar Wilde, Lillian Hellman, as well as- other local playwrights. Further, the Freestones kept intricate records of all of the 206 plays that OpenStage Theatre performed from 1973 to 2007. These records consist of almost every paper document relating to all 206 plays, as well as – countless financial and accounting documents, meeting minutes, notes to staff, membership information, and a gun (a fake gun, that I realized was a prop, but not after jumping away from it as I saw it laying innocently among newspaper clippings).

Where does one even begin to make some sort of organizational sense with a collection like this?

I started big ­– with the MPLP (more product, less process) mentality, currently popular among archivists. To give you an idea, I opened up every box of those 102 boxes and wrote notes to myself about what exactly each box contained. Scripts? Receipts? Season ticket renewals? Meeting minutes from 1975? Donations? Grant applications? I took brief notes because the contents of those boxes ran the gamut.

A typical note to myself can be seen below

Here are a few of the 102 boxes with their notes tagged on them

 

Generally from here, the archivist would find some sort of organizational pattern amongst the chaos. For instance, for OpenStages’s collection, all documents fell into two major categories: documents pertaining to the plays or office files.

For the majority of my time at FCMoD, I focused on the actual documents surrounding the productions. These records consisted of hand drawn set and costume designs, photographs of actors applying makeup backstage and engaging in rousing sword fights on stage, unique and moving posters advertising productions to the public, playbills given to audience members, newspaper clippings advertising and commenting on performances, and much more.

By the end of my internship, I presented the Curator of the Archive, Lesley Struc, with about 15 boxes of neatly organized archival file folders, which all corresponded to one of the 206 plays performed between 1973 and 2007. Below, you can see an image of a before and after photo of a box of slides that I processed.

Before

After

Now, when OpenStage begins the preliminary planning stages of their 50th anniversary, a researcher can visit the Archive at FCMoD and find a host of unique items that OpenStage Theatre produced, from costume and set designs for the Children’s Hour, to the newspaper clippings of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, to the intricate and textured orange poster for Carmen – a trove of organized treasures awaits them.

Research and commemorations would not be possible without the tireless work of archivists and I am happy that I was able to make the Archive at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery a little more accessible, just in time for the 50th anniversary OpenStage festivities to begin.

Photos courtesy of Carly Boerrigter.

Thank YOU, Carly, for being an awesome FCMoD intern! We so appreciate your hard work and our community is grateful for the work you’ve done to make local history accessible to all.

Interested in interning at FCMoD? Check out opportunities under the “Internships” section of this page.

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Time Travel: 1950s – 1980s

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Ages 9-12, Archive & Collections, Local History, Social Studies, Teens

Post written by Alex Ballou, Marketing & Design Assistant. 

Time Travel: 1950s – 1980s

Have you ever wanted to travel back in time? In our latest blog we travel back to the historic decades of Fort Collins. We will start in 1910 and travel up to 1980. Join us as we scavenge the local history of our town.

 

1950s: Reformation

The need for reform in Fort Collins’ city government had been a local topic since the late 1940s. Voter reluctance to change the structure of the local government led city officials to move the city toward a more efficient system by using special powers, as with the placement of Guy Palmes as city manager in 1949. This movement necessitated a revision to the city charter. To this end the local chapter of the National League of Women Voters, formed in 1951, supported an analysis of the government, an updated charter, and voter education to convince the public. The effort was rewarded when, on October 5, 1954, a new city charter was adopted by special election.

Under the council-manager form of government, the City Manager was given administration of the city. He was hired and fired by the city council, attended council meetings, but had no vote. The mayor was chosen by the council, did not have the discretionary powers a mayor in the council-mayor form had, and authority for decision-making resided in the council.

In 1952 the local streetcar system became the last such operation in Colorado to end its services. The trolley had been costing the city money for several years and the cars were not in good condition. The establishment of an independent bus company in Fort Collins in June 1951 made the loss easier for local commuters. However, Bussard Bus Company’s Fort Collins operation did not match the trolley’s longevity. It ended its services in December, 1955.

 

1960s: Migration

The 1960s were turbulent years in Fort Collins. National unrest over the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement was reflected locally, especially on the Colorado State University campus. These crises combined with amazing growth in the city’s size and population, made the 1960s an unsettled period in Fort Collins history.

Rapidly increasing enrollment led to a building boom on the CSU campus. 7,304 students were enrolled at the University during the 1962-63 academic year. The figure grew to 15,361 in the 1968-69 year and plans were made to provide facilities for 25,000 students in the 1970s. Three new structures were built during the 1960s: Morgan Library, Moby Gym, and Hughes Stadium. In 1968, CSU became a member of the Western Athletic Conference and dedicated the new 30,000-seat Hughes Stadium to legendary coach Harry Hughes.

The social consciousness of the 1960s found expression through a variety of organizations and activities. One of these was the Peace Corps, which began with a feasibility study conducted at CSU in 1960. Maurice Albertson, an engineering professor who directed the University’s international programs office, was responsible for obtaining the grant for the study. By 1966, over 15,000 Peace Corps volunteer workers were scattered throughout the world.

 

1970s: Designing tomorrow

Campus unrest over civil rights issues and the Vietnam War continued at CSU in the 1970s. The alleged racist practices of Brigham Young University were a relatively volatile issue. While CSU’s administration refused to cancel a basketball game with BYU in January 1970, it did reluctantly allow a peaceful demonstration prior to the game. The demonstration proceeded as planned with no problems. However, during halftime, a group of predominantly black protesters rushed onto the floor of Moby Gym, fists held high in the “Black Power” salute. The protesters were slow to leave the floor and Fort Collins police were called on to clear the area. A student protest on a less serious matter occurred in April 1975. University administrators were reluctant to allow a Rolling Stones concert at Hughes Stadium that summer. The protest was relatively small, and the band was allowed to play. Traffic jams and discarded beer cans were the only adverse consequences.

The growth of Fort Collins between 1950 and 1970 completely changed the city. A new organization was founded in 1970 to help Fort Collins residents cope with rapid changes and to develop comprehensive long-range planning. Under Mayor Karl Carson’s initiative, a committee called “Planned Development for Quality” (PDQ), was formed. The name was later changed to “Designing Tomorrow Today” or “DT squared.”

“Design tomorrow today.”

In October 1970, DT reported projections up to the year 2000 concerning housing, transportation, education, employment, utilities, recreation, and social services. Task forces developed plans for public facilities and projects. On January 4, 1973, DT included: A new City Library; the Lincoln Community Center; Poudre River Parkway; land use planning and growth control; Transfort and Care-a-Van transportation systems; new parks; federally subsidized low income housing projects; sewer lines to Alta Vista and Andersonville; and restoration of the Avery House.

A popular park developed during the 1970s was the Lee Martinez Park, bordering the south bank of the Poudre River, west of the College Avenue bridge. The park was named after Librado “Lee” Martinez, a Fort Collins resident from 1906 until his death in 1970. Martinez was very active in community affairs. Shopping malls appeared in Fort Collins in the 1970s. The malls changed the face of the city and ended the downtown area’s dominance retail business. The major malls built during the decade were Foothills Fashion Mall, University Mall, and The Square, all off South College Avenue.

 

1980s: Growth

City planning continued as a major concern of the city of Fort Collins in the 1980s. Unincorporated border areas were a special problem. These areas often developed in ways inconsistent with standards established by the City, which created problems when these areas were annexed. To obtain some control over this development and avoid inefficient urban sprawl, the cities of Fort Collins and Loveland, joined by Larimer County, instituted the Urban Growth Area Plan in 1980. This plan designated a growth area boundary to accommodate expected development, provided guidelines for development within the boundary, established zoning regulations for development in the growth area, and contained an agreement which assured that land would be annexed by the appropriate adjacent city.

The development and restoration of downtown Fort Collins, a consideration begun in the 1970s, continued in the 1980s. In March 1981, voters created the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), made up of downtown property owners. Its board included one city council member. Their initial concerns were for parking and the undergrounding of utilities. The DDA supported projects with money from a five-mill tax levy in the DDA district and from tax revenue generated by new development. Projects the DDA has completed or supported included the parking garage on Mountain Avenue near Old Town and Old Town Square on Linden. Mitchell and Company of Denver revealed plans in 1981 for turning Old Town into a viable business district. 200,000 square feet of business space was included in the project, which sought to preserve historic buildings and build new structures compatible with them.

Increased growth was blamed, in part, for a two-thirds increase in felony crimes in Fort Collins between 1978 and 1981. One crime in Fort Collins that received worldwide attention in 1981 was the conviction of Eugene A. Tafoya for third-degree assault and conspiracy to commit third-degree assault. He had been charged with first-degree attempted murder and conspiracy. Investigators suspected that Tafoya had been hired by a former CIA agent to kill Faisal A. Zagallai, a Libyan dissident who had been critical of Mohammar Khadafy. However, there was not enough evidence to connect Tafoya with the agent.

 

To discover more about the decades and history of Fort Collins check out Fort Collins History Connection, the online collaboration between FCMoD and the Poudre River Public Library District: history.fcgov.com.

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Time Travel: 1910s – 1940s

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Ages 9-12, Archive & Collections, Local History, Social Studies, Teens

Post written by Alex Ballou, Marketing & Design Assistant. 

Time Travel: 1910s – 1940s

Have you ever wanted to travel back in time? In our latest blog we travel back to the historic decades of Fort Collins. We will start in 1910 and travel up to 1980. Join us as we scavenge the local history of our town.

 

1910s: Development

The 1910s were turbulent for Fort Collins, as for the rest of the world. The first world war dominated the news of the latter half of the decade. However, there were also many important civic developments. Among these was the city’s change to a commission form of government in 1913.

Also important to the town’s continued development was the sugar industry, which continued as the dominant economic force of the area. In September 1919, The Fort Collins Express noted that an estimated twenty million dollars had been paid for sugar beets in Larimer County in over a period of seventeen years.

College students built and whitewashed the “Aggie A” on a hillside west of town in 1912. Three years later the school and the town celebrated the football team’s first conference championship. The Fort Collins Express expected the title to bring more students and prestige to the school and consequently benefit the town. Annually, the “Aggie A” is still painted by college students.

   

1920s: Prospering

Despite a generally depressed farm economy after World War I, Larimer County farmers were comparatively prosperous. The Fort Collins Express-Courier (the two local papers combined in 1920) claimed that no other county in Colorado fed as many sheep and cattle as did Larimer County.

Beet growers were also still doing well. An attractive contract in 1925 between Great Western Sugar Company and the Mountain States Beet Growers Marketing Association guaranteed eight dollars per ton plus incentive bonuses.

Larimer County was also prospering industrially. It ranked third among Colorado counties in manufacturing. Most of the factories were in or near Fort Collins. The biggest producers were the sugar factory and the Ideal Cement plant built in 1927 near La Porte.

“History is the whole series of past events.”

History contains the good, bad, and ugly – and the 1920s witnessed a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado. The Klan gained control of state politics during the early part of the decade and had many men in elective and appointive offices. Klansmen in Fort Collins could be found in courthouse offices and city hall. During one rally, sheet-covered KKK members marched from North College Avenue to Lincoln Park. However, the Klan did not place a significant number of its people into local public offices. Its influence faded during the latter half of the decade.

A political figure on the rise, Franklin D. Roosevelt, visited Fort Collins in 1920 on a campaign tour as a vice-presidential candidate, and spoke from the courthouse steps against increasing the Navy and for the League of Nations.

 

1930s: Depression

The Great Depression of the 1930s worsened an already dismal situation. A farm economy which had been depressed since the end of World War I sank even lower as prices fell to new lows for agricultural commodities. Drought during the first half of the decade, combined with a grasshopper plague, added to the hardships, especially for plains farmers, many of whose crops were lost.

In the Fort Collins area, the water shortage became so severe that the city banned the use of water from the waterworks system for lawns and gardens in September 1934. The Cache la Poudre River was said to be at the lowest level known since settlement of the valley. In March 1935, the city council approved a watering rule which allowed townspeople to water their lawns one day per week.

The Extension Service of Colorado Agricultural College played a vital role in providing relief to afflicted farmers. Extension personnel helped to gather and distribute food, protect crops from grasshoppers, and promoted tree cultivation. The Extension Service also participated in the development of several New Deal programs. The College’s Experiment Station also worked to alleviate the effects of the drought and grasshoppers and conducted other beneficial projects.

 

1940s: Defense

The war in Europe, which began in 1939, had almost immediate effects in Fort Collins.In October 1940, 3,881 Larimer County men registered for Selective Service. A national draft was held at the end of the month. Battery A, of the 168th Field Artillery and Medical Detachment, was inducted into the U. S. Army in February 1941.

Because of Colorado State College’s tradition of supplying military instruction, an R. O. T. C. program, and pilot training, its former students contributed heavily to the war effort. More than eighty former C. S. C. students died in the war. The College’s faculty also took part. Over one-third of the male teaching and research staff served in the armed forces or as advisers to the military. Several members of the faculty aided in weapons research, including work on the atom bomb. The College’s Extension Service and Experiment Station worked to maximize food production.

Fort Collins women took part in defense training classes which taught skills needed for war industries. Although excluded from foundry work, women were included in classes for welding, machine shop and sheet metal work.

 

To discover more about the decades and history of Fort Collins check out Fort Collins History Connection, the online collaboration between FCMoD and the Poudre River Public Library District: history.fcgov.com.

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Armistice: The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Archive & Collections, Local History, Social Studies, Teens, WWI

Post written by Jenny Hannifin, Archive Research Assistant, and Doug Ernest, Archive Volunteer.

Join us on Thursday, November 8th, for World War I and Fort Collins: Exploring the John Hurdle Scrapbook in the OtterBox Digital Dome Theater to commemorate the “War to End All Wars” through the local lens of a remarkable scrapbook created by John Hurdle, a Fort Collins man who traveled to Europe and served on the Western Front with Artillery Battery A during The Great War.

Armistice:

On November 11, 1918, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. The ceasefire went into effect at 11am, and for the soldiers of Battery A, the war was effectively over.

“There was none of the cheering or the excitement, crying, weeping, hugging and slapping of shoulders that you would want to see. It is hard to express our feelings. We were tired.” Fort Collins Weekly Courier, December 27, 1918

H12036: WWI Red Cross Nurses in Parade on College Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado, 1917

The fighting may have been over, but it would be many more months before the soldiers of Battery A returned home to Fort Collins.

Soldiers of the 66th Field Artillery Brigade (which included Battery A) were part of the occupation force in Germany. They spent a few weeks in Blercourt; on Thanksgiving were served a huge traditional dinner; on December 2 departed for Germany; and celebrated Christmas Day in Germany by opening six kegs of beer. They remained in the town of Hohr-Grenzhausen, near Koblenz, until late May 1919.

H00350: Charles Conrey (circa 1910), killed in action during WWI

Stories in Fort Collins newspapers in 1918 and 1919 reported the deaths of three men of Battery A. Charles Conrey was killed in action on October 10, 1918. Jesse Martin and Frank Niemeyer died of pneumonia while the unit was still in Europe. In addition to these three, John Hurdle’s album lists four other casualties: Louis H. Pinkham, Charles C. Moore, James Orendorf, and Walter G. Ridgeway.

“LeRoy Hafen’s Colorado and its People, Volume 1 (1949), page 540, reports that ‘1,009 [Colorado military personnel] were killed or died in service.’ … Many died of disease, including Walter Ridgeway of Battery A, felled by tuberculosis. … Ironically the number of war dead paled in comparison with the more than 7,783 Coloradans who died during the influenza pandemic which dealt death around the world mainly between September 1918 and early 1919.” (Colorado World War I Centennial Commission)

Battery A soldiers left Germany for France on May 26, 1919; departed France on June 3; and arrived in New York City on June 15. At Camp Mills, on June 19, their regiment was disbanded.  Batteries A, B, C, D, and E arrived at Colorado Springs on June 24 via train, and “the Regiment marched in parade amid the shouts and praises of the entire populace.” From there the soldiers went on to Denver, Fort Collins, and Cheyenne, where they received similar welcomes “and the appreciation from the citizens of our record on the fields of France.” By the end of June the batteries had been discharged from military service.

To learn more about what happened to our Fort Collins soldiers AFTER World War, check out the resources below. And visit the Archive!

Resources:

 

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National Authors Day: Barbara Fleming

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Archive & Collections, Local History

Post written by Alex Ballou, Marketing & Design Assistant. 

National Authors Day

Fort Collins Museum of Discovery had the honor of interviewing local author, Barbara Fleming. Barbara, a Colorado native, was interested in history and reading historical novels at a young age. When she went to college at Colorado State University, she studied English and writing. Barbara then ventured out to work as a journalist, teacher, and finally found herself writing books of her own in the 1980s.

Barbara sat down with staff for an interview in honor of National Authors Day on November 1st. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

  1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your connection to FCMoD?

I am a native of Fort Collins. I have always been a lover of history. When I retired, and we moved back to Fort Collins, my late husband and I, I started writing the historical column for the now Fort Collins Weekly which became Fort Collins Now, in the meantime I had been contacted by a company called Arcadia publishing about writing historical books. So, I got together with a friend of mine, Mac McNeill, and we put together Fort Collins: The Miller Photographs and in the course of writing that I got even more interested in the history of my hometown because it is rich and fascinating. So, when the Weekly went out of business, I contacted the Coloradoan and started writing the column for them. Doing that brought me to the Archive multiple times before and after it was moved to the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery (FCMoD). I was well acquainted with [the archivists] back in the basement of the Carnegie building, where the Archive used to be, and am still now acquainted with the archivists at FCMoD. So, I have been coming to the Archive for a very long time.

“The history of [Fort Collins] is rich and fascinating.”

  1. What inspired you to become a writer?

I was always a writer. I started writing, almost, well actually before I started school and I taught myself to read when I was four years old. When I was young I was going to be like Jo March from little women – I was going to be sitting in a garret and eating apples and writing famous books. Didn’t quite work out that way, I had to earn a living, so instead I started teaching English. I did write a book in 1983, which is called, Fort Collins a Pictorial History, which is a hard-back book that is now out of print. And subsequently I wrote from time to time about various topics for various publications. It was not until I came back here that I started to devote more time. I went to college at CSU. My late husband Tom and I lived in Denver for a time and I taught at various community colleges as an adjunct English teacher. But I was always a writer.

  1. How did the process of writing your first book, Journeying, go?

Journeying was the first book I published without a co-author. Then I published a couple more: Legendary Locals of Fort Collins, Fort Collins A History, and Hidden History of Fort Collins. The process included a lot of research, and a lot of pondering. But when I write a novel – and I have written several, even though only two have been published – I just wait for the characters to find out what they are going to do, that’s hard to describe if you’re not a writer, but writers understand that. Journeying is historical fiction. The others I have written are more contemporary, but who knows if they will ever see the light of day, it’s hard to say.

  1. Now that you’ve been published, is there anything you wish you would have known before?

I think any writer can look at anything he or she has published and would like to do it all over again. We can see the flaws even if other people can’t. But, no, when your writing you reach a point that I quit that’s it and enough is enough and you let it go because you have to. So, no there is not anything that I wish I would have known before.

  1. What are some books you would recommend for locals to learn about Fort Collins history?

History of Larimer County Colorado by Ansel Watrous – it’s not a book you sit down and read, but a book you can take in bits and pieces of. And a book that ought to be in any serious historian’s library. And Fort Collins Yesterdays by Evadene Swanson as well as and John Gray’s book The Story of Camp and Fort Collins: Calvary and Coaches, which I would love to own (but if I got it through ebay or somewhere it would cost me almost $300 so I can’t do that). The Wrecking Ball of Progress by Wayne Sundberg is a good video to understand about historic preservation. The museum has done a video about the history of Fort Collins and that’s a good one too. I don’t listen to podcasts so can’t recommend one. There is a digital newspaper state collection online, Colorado historic newspapers, which goes from beginning of newspapers of the 1860s to 1924, that they have all been digitized.

  1. What role would you like to see museums like FCMoD play in helping prepare young people for a career in STEAM related fields?

Anything that can get them engaged is of value. Young people are – well I can’t make generalizations – I feel young people can be somewhat disaffected, and not as involved with the world around them as we – or I – would like them to be. Anything a museum, or anyplace really, does that reaches young people and encourages them to be engaged and hands-on is of value. The arts are critical to the survival of a culture. We need art.

“Anything a museum does that reaches young people and encourages them to be engaged & hands-on is of value.”

  1. FCMoD’s archive has multiple of your books in our collections. How does it feel to have your story preserved in a museum?

I think it’s very gratifying. I think the more information we can share about history the better. To me, history is not just dates and events – and that’s the way it is usually taught. And so, a lot of people say they hate history and say it is boring. History is people and their stories. And so, I don’t record history. I tell stories. And there is a huge difference between the two. So, I am pleased if my stories are there for future generations.

  1. What do you wish people would ask you about writing?

Hmm…  I think rather than having people ask me about writing, because it is such an individual task, I would like to be able to encourage people to write, whether they think they are good writers or not, because everyone has stories to tell and we ought to share our stories. So even if you do nothing more as an older person than write out significant events in your life, you are telling a story and that is what is important. I would love to think that such ideas and information are being shared by younger generations. One of the things I do is through the Partnership for Age- Friendly Communities- a formal nonprofit organization. They publish a blog once a month called Graceful Aging that is written by older people whose stories are told about their experiences of aging. Our goal is to reach young people to help them understand what it feels like to be old and what kind of experiences we had and what we share; to touch them in some way.

  1. Here at FCMoD, we tell the stories of Northern Colorado. Part of the museum’s vision is to inspire inquisitive thinkers. What advice do you have for the future journalists, writers, authors and dreamers of the world?

Well for writers, first of all, write about what you know, write from your own life and experience and it will expand as you begin to write to the world around you.

For dreamers, I think anything is possible, the world is changing so rapidly, so intensely, that we sometimes, I feel that I am on a merry-go-round, going around and around, faster than I can keep up with. I think you just have to grab the brass ring and believe anything is possible… because look how far we’ve come.

In my lifetime, it’s astounding, we have gone from communication by telephone – when I was growing up we had a party line – to this; to the internet. It is astounding what has happened, even in the last twenty years. I think it is because people keep dreaming, and I think people need to keep dreaming. Writers should know though that making a living writing is tough, really tough. I couldn’t live on my writing. I travel on it, but I couldn’t live on it. Unless you’re really lucky or if you’re JK Rowling or James Patterson, you’re not going to make a living. But that should not deter them from writing because there are always stories to share. And I think we do not share enough.

“I think you just have to grab the brass ring and believe anything is possible… because look how far we’ve come.”

Thank you to Barbara for her time and for sharing her stories!

To find out more about Barbara’s books and to hear more from a local author follow: www.authorbarbarafleming.com

Barbara will also be at a book signing December 1st at JAX Outdoor for their annual author day celebration.

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Tree City USA

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Local History, Social Studies

Post written by Alex Ballou, Marketing & Design Assistant.

Did you know that Fort Collins is an Arbor Foundation’s Tree City USA? And that we have been a Tree City USA for over 40 years?

What is Tree City USA?

The Tree City USA program has been greening cities in America since 1976. The Tree City USA program has the potential to positively transform how communities see themselves. The Tree City USA program recognizes cities for basic tree care efforts and activities they are doing to keep their residents safe, increase their community’s livability, and build community spirit. Healthy trees “advertise” a healthy community, and the Tree City USA program helps a community display that it values improving its trees on behalf of its residents.

How did we become a Tree City USA?

To certify as a Tree City USA a city needs to meet these four standards within a calendar year:

Standard 1 requires that a city have a tree committee or urban forestry department.  For many cities, the tree committee is a sub-committee of an existing commission. The formation of a tree board often stems from a group of citizens. Standard one identifies the people, or department, who are responsible for the policies and procedures related to a city’s publicly owned trees, such as those along roadways and in parks. Involving residents and business owners creates wide awareness of what trees do for the community and provides broad support for better tree care. The Forestry staff of Fort Collins maintains more than 40,000 city property trees.

Standard 2 requires that a city have a tree care ordinance. No city needs to regulate tree care or tree removal off private property to meet this Standard. The tree board or forestry department has responsibility for public tree care (as reflected in Standard 1).

Standard 3 requires a $2 per capita expenditure on tree care and an annual urban forestry plan. This Standard is all about keeping records and being accountable to a cities residents. It is a way of showing how your city proactively manages it trees for the safety of its residents and beauty of the city. This expenditure goal doesn’t need to be a line item in a city’s budget. Volunteer time, contracted services for tree care and removal can also be included, as can the costs of leaf pick up and tree-related software purchase.

Standard 4 requires an Arbor Day observation and proclamation. Your city does not have to do this on National Arbor Day, but any time during the calendar year. Citizens join to celebrate the benefits of community trees and the work accomplished to plant and maintain them.

Why be a Tree City USA?

Tree City USA is a nationwide movement that provides communities with direction, assistance, and national recognition for their community. It doesn’t relate to federal funding for state urban forestry efforts. State foresters are not paid by the Arbor Day Foundation to administer the program, but we do so because we see a lot of value in the simple urban forestry framework the Tree City USA program provides.

Fort Collins is proud to have been a Tree City USA for over 40 years.

 

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” -Warren Buffett

 

 

CSU Arboretum

Adding to Fort Collins as Tree City USA is the CSU Arboretum. The arboretum at CSU has the largest collections of woody plants in Fort Collins with over 1,100 different taxa represented. In 2017, 79 different woody plants were donated from 8 different nurseries arboreta, USDA, and other state experiment stations. Most plants are labeled with scientific and common names listed on it. In the southeast corner of the arboretum, a Plant Select® demonstration garden is planted. In this planting current and future woody and herbaceous Plant Select® endorsements, introductions or original plants are planted. Plant Select® is a joint plant introduction program between Colorado State University, Denver Botanic Gardens and the Green Industry of Colorado.

 

Celebrate Fort Collins being Tree City USA at the museum! Join us for Museum Takeover: Tremendous Trees on September 15th.

 

Sources:

www.fcgov.com/forestry/

landscapeplants.agsci.colostate.edu/arboretum/

www.arborday.org/PROGRAMS/treecityusa/treecities.cfm?chosenstate=Colorado

 

Photo courtesy of Visit Fort Collins Colorados’ Website: www.visitftcollins.com/csu

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Battery A: Second Battle of the Marne

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Archive & Collections, Local History, Social Studies, WWI

Post written by Jenny Hannifin, Archive Research Assistant, and Doug Ernest, Archive Volunteer.

During four months in combat in World War I, Battery A took part in three major battles: the Second Battle of the Marne (July 15–August 6), the Battle of St. Mihiel (September 12–16), and the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne (September 26–November 11). The Meuse-Argonne remains the largest battle ever fought in American history, with 1.2 million American troops involved and a casualty roll of approximately 122,000 dead and wounded.

It is no exaggeration to say that the Fort Collins soldiers of Battery A had a significant role in World War I.

At the Second Battle of the Marne (also known as the Aisne-Marne Offensive) Battery A saw their first dead and wounded soldiers from both sides of the conflict, witnessed enemy aircraft circle overhead, and suffered deadly gas exposure.

In his history of Battery A’s Grande Puissance Filloux artillery piece, aka “Gila Monster,” Hurdle tells us that at the start of the German offensive, the GPF was in action for 72 hours. The barrel grew so hot that it could have fried steak and eggs and at times had to be filled with water to cool it.

H0096: Excerpt from Hurdle’s history of the GPF “Gila Monster,” with “steak and eggs” reference circled

The troops’ efforts in July and August of 1918 would significantly impact the future of the war. Whereas in the spring and early summer of 1918 the Germans had been on the attack, hoping to defeat the French and British before American troops arrived, the Second Battle of the Marne reversed that situation. From August 1918 until the end of the war, the Germans were on the defensive, and the Allies always moving forward.

An anonymous letter from a member of Battery A to the Rocky Mountain Collegian reported: “We counter-attacked right in the center of [the German] push, men met men, and after the hell stopped we held the River Marne’s south bank, and Paris, if not the world, was saved.” (“Battery A Actively Engaged in Fiercest of American Drives,” Rocky Mountain Collegian, January 2, 1919).

In a letter to The Weekly Courier (published August 16 but dated July 12), Hurdle writes “the doughboys here tell us that when the gas comes over, there are just two kinds of soldiers, ‘the quick and the dead’ … ” (page 2.)

Unfortunately, that deadly gas could spread almost instantaneously, and Hurdle was caught by it on August 10, near the village of Chery-Chartreuve. Though in serious condition due to gas exposure, he refused to be evacuated. His military Record Book shows him as having participated in battles until August 16, 1918, but not thereafter. It seems likely that the Army sent him to a rear area not just for further officer training (he had been promoted from corporal to sergeant in the summer of 1918), but also to allow him time to recuperate from the lingering effects of that terrible gas exposure.

H0108: Hurdle’s Officer’s Record Book, with gassing incident circled

 

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Diamond T Fire Truck

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Archive & Collections, Local History, Social Studies

Post written by Kristin Rush, Marketing & Communications Manager. 

History speaks to us from many sources. From words and pictures we construct images of the past. But no source is more alive than the legacy we can still see and touch for ourselves. And so it is with the Diamond T Fire Truck.

The Diamond T was a mainstay of the Fort Collins municipal fire department from 1937 to 1963. When the department’s original ladder truck was damaged in a collision in 1937, City Council approved the $1,234.85 necessary to purchase a Diamond T chassis. Without delay, the firefighters sprang into action. They repaired and remodeled the body from the wrecked truck and installed it on the new Diamond T chassis. As shiny as a newly minted coin, bearing 287 feet of ladder and 237 different tools, the Diamond T, Truck No. 3, found its home in the Walnut Street Fire Station.

The Diamond T reached the end of its fire-fighting days in the 1960s when newer equipment pushed aside the old. It was sold to Lake County in 1963. In 1981, after years of languishing in the elements, the deteriorated Diamond T was sold to a private individual, who then sold it to the Fort Collins Museum for $685.

In 1994 the Fort Collins Museum and retired fire chief Ed Yonker [pictured below] initiated a campaign to restore the Diamond T, which was designated a Local Landmark in 1996. Local citizens, businesses and the Colorado Historical Society State Historical Fund all contributed to the effort to breathe new life into the Diamond T and restore it to its 1952 appearance.

The restoration process was completed over the course of a year by the Colorado Artifact Conservation Center (CACC) in Ordway, Colorado. The truck was completely taken apart, rewired, repaired, rebuilt and rechromed piece by piece. The restoration crew is pictured with the Diamond T below.

Poudre Fire Authority Lead Mechanic, Jim Mirowski, rebuilt and installed the Diamond T’s engine. Although much of the original vehicle was preserved, its dilapidated condition required the use of some parts salvaged from other Diamond T’s. The tires and upholstery are reproductions.

Our history tells us who we are, and preserving it sharpens our understanding and sense of direction. Preserving the Diamond T, saving it from near extinction, helps us stay in touch with a century of fire-fighting lore, and the small town ingenuity which found ways to adopt the Diamond T to ever-changing needs.

“Our history tells us who we are.”

The Fort Collins Museum of Discovery will continue to care for the Diamond T and all the other objects within its trust, preserving them for generations to come.

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Battery A: Before the Battle

Posted on by Kristin Rush in Adults, Archive & Collections, Local History, Social Studies, WWI

Post written by Jenny Hannifin, Archive Research Assistant, and Doug Ernest, Archive Volunteer

In May of 1918, Battery A soldiers were stationed at training camps at Libourne and Castillon, near Bordeaux, France.

In letters published in local newspapers in May and June of 1918, John Hurdle described the French locals, visits to nearby castles and dungeons, and eating doughnuts back at Battery A. He also mentions the issuance of helmets and artillery, although censorship kept him from describing the 155 mm GPFs (Grande Puissance Filloux) in detail.

Here are excerpts from the May 1918 letter written by Hurdle and published in the Fort Collins Weekly Courier:

“Our quarters and office are right in the middle of town in the front of a boys’ school building. …We have a nice bed of violets, carnations and tulips in the yard … We are the first American troops to stop here and the people treat us grand … The country here is much better than the part we just left; has large “chateaus” and well kept fields and excellent roads. … About two miles from here is what the natives call the oldest town in France. I went over, saw a lot of old castles and dungeons which they say were built about 300 A.D.” (Friday, May 31, 1918)

“We have finally drawn our own guns … Capt. Coffin would have no trouble at all in killing one of Dora’s pet milk cows with the gun set up in our back yard at 400. … We have also drawn helmets which we are told are shrapnel proof. They are not much from a beauty standpoint but they are excellent for rainy weather and can be used for wash pan, cuspidor, frying pan or foot tub with very satisfactory results.” (Friday, May 31, 1918)

A letter written by Vance Lough was also published in the Fort Collins newspaper. Lough, formerly the proprietor of Poudre Valley Dairy, was now a truck driver with Battery A. He described the French countryside, and went on to note “The boys [of the Battery] are becoming good Frenchmen so far as drinking wine is concerned.”

Despite the excursions recounted by Hurdle and Lough, the real work of the unit continued day after day: firing the 155 mm GPFs, transporting guns by convoy, marching, and practicing the use of gas masks. The time for drills and practice was nearing its end: On July 4, 2018, the 148th moved northward, and on July 6 they heard the sound of firing for the first time. The men of the Colorado batteries were about to take part in their first battle.

Next post:  Second Battle of the Marne

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