Tour 3: Cathy Fromme Prairie Natural Area

Cathy Fromme Prairie Natural Area, known as a jewel of the high plains, is an excellent and rare example of how the Colorado Front Range looked before it was settled. The rolling terrain, wetlands, and grasslands support a variety of plants and animals. The shortgrass prairie landscape, consisting of prairie dog colonies that attract a healthy raptor population – golden eagles, ferruginous hawks, rough-legged hawks, red-tailed hawks, and Swainson's hawks – also supports a variety of other wildlife. Horned lizards, ground-nesting songbirds, butterflies, rabbits, coyotes and rattlesnakes can also commonly be seen.

As far back as the 1960s, citizens of northern Larimer County have been concerned about maintaining a physical separation between Loveland and Fort Collins. Since that time, the cities of Loveland and Fort Collins, along with Larimer County, have worked to provide a buffer between them. Cathy Fromme Prairie is one part of that buffering effort. The late Cathy Fromme was a local advocate for citizen involvement and environmental protection. She served on the Fort Collins City Council in 1991 and 1992.

Home on the Prairie: The Franz-Smith Cabin

Today, Cathy Fromme Prairie is home to the plants and animals that inhabit the shortgrass prairie, but not too long ago the area was home to the Franz and the Smith families, as well.

The Franz family was originally from Württemberg, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1867. They settled in New Jersey, but the appeal of the availability of land in the west, coupled with advancements in farming and irrigation that made it possible to make a good living as a farmer in more arid climates, convinced the Franz family to move to Colorado in the early 1880s. After living in a sod cellar for the first year, in 1882 they built a one and a half story log cabin on land they were homesteading near what is now Cathy Fromme Prairie. Henry and Caroline Franz and their two children, Magdalena Louise and William Henry, farmed their property, growing sugar, beets, alfalfa and other grains, and raising lambs.

The Smith family purchased the property and the Franz’s log cabin in 1936. While the small house was not the Smith family’s primary residence, the cabin continued to be used, housing family and friends who came to visit until 1987, when the property was sold again.

When the Smith family sold the land to the developer of the Clarendon Hills subdivision, they stipulated that the Franz cabin had to be saved and moved to another location. The Larimer County Historic Alliance moved the building, now called the Franz-Smith Cabin, to Livermore. The Historic Alliance planned to restore the cabin and create an architectural park around it, but were never able to carry out their plans and, left exposed to the elements, the building quickly deteriorated.

In 2000, the Franz-Smith Cabin was moved to the Heritage Courtyard of the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery. Now restored, the Franz-Smith Cabin helps interpret the history of homesteading and agriculture in Fort Collins.