Old Town Ft. Collins

Try imagining this scene with Model-Ts, surreys, and wagons instead of modern vehicles. Then replace the electric lights with gas lanterns and fill the scene with residents in their daily work and business attire. Imagine hearing the clanging of the trolley as it traveled along steel rails embeddefd in the red brick streets. In the distance, you might have heard the roar of a train and the blasts of sound from its horn.  Old Town Ft. Collins is bathed in nostalgia. The old “Cheers” theme song runs through my head as I see a shot like this!

Ft. Collins, as we know it now, was built at the site of the 1877 fort. With the trains to carry agricultural products and roads along the Front Range connecting Denver with all points north, the area blossomed. The rest, as they say, is history! Fortunately, much of the historic district has been spared the wrecking ball often used to modernize a downtown district.

Darla and I go to Ft. Collins a couple of times a month. With so many restaurants, pubs, resources, it’s a great place to unwind and sample a few of the craft beers. It’s a popular place, so finding a parking space can be a challenge. Colorado State University is only a few blocks south of the historic district. As a result, Ft. Collins has a healthy mix of old and new blood and fresh takes on the state of the world.

Hopefully, readers here see the beauty in the architecture of the time!  Lawyers and businessmen suggest “the devil is in the details” when evaluating a business transaction or contract. When viewing these old buildings, I find the “beauty” is in the details!

It’s obvious several of the architects and builders of the time wanted to make prestiege and longevity “statements”. 

A good hometown bank was essential and a rock solid, decorative building would help convey a sense of permanence and stability to the farming and business communities around it.

This lion head is on the arch entry of the bank, seen in the previous photo.

State Highway 287 runs through Ft. Collins, but traffic has to slow significantly while going through town. Overall, however, the historic district still has a vintage hometown feel. A couple of areas are blocked off, creating an “outdoor pedestrian mall” atmosphere.  I-25 runs parallel to Highway 287, taking the pressure off the old highway and making it possible for travelers to speed by the town if they are in a hurry.

Sections of the old trolley rails are preserved in Old Town along with sections of Mountain Avenue. The trolley runs on weekends in the summer…something I plan on doing!

Birney and the Trolley: This link takes you to Jim Saylor’s shared Lightroom page, showing about a dozen colorful photos of the trolley.  

Small details, like these bricks, are everywhere.

There aren’t many “chain stores” in downtown Ft. Collins.  Most shops and businesses are unique “mom and pop” ventures. With that, many of the businnesses have unique signs. Coming from a sign background, I find the area refreshing when compared to the “anywhere city” homogenization of the rest of the country. Actually you can find that phenomenon happening in Ft. Collins, too.  Just get outside the historic district! If you like shopping the “big box” stores, both Loveland and Ft. Collins has them.

Several businesses have eyecatching elements like this blind pig “sign” in front of a pub. There was a time when objects like this identified a business for the people that couldn’t read. You might have also seen a boot for a shoe and boot shop, anvil for a blacksmith, or spiral barber pole for a barber.

Over the past 150 years, a wide variety of building materials have been integrated into the architecture. Glass bricks like these are fairly common. 

A few “ghost signs” remain on the brick walls. Traditionally, white leadand lamp black pigments were very durable. Other colors often faded or turned transparent over this many years. 

Zoom lenses are great for finding angles and details most people never really see.. I just look for interesting compositions amongst the many options.

I sent an email to the Ft. Collins Historical Society to see if anyone there could tell me the significance of the word “block” used on many of the large old buildings. (F.Miller Block, Kissock Block, HC Howard Block, JL Hohnstein Block, etc.)

This is the response from Meg at the Ft. Collins Historical Society:
“That was just a common way of referring to a building back in the day. It didn’t have any significance other than that, as far as I know. Somehow, over time, we seem to have extended the word to mean the entire section of street between intersections. But we used to use it just for a particular building.”

I posted quite a few images above, but I captured a lot more!  Actually, I was there one time using a Sony A-1 and a Tamron 35-150mm lens. It worked great, but I went back another time and used the same Sony A-1 body with a Sony 200-600mm lens. The extra reach gave me a chance to get much tighter shots of some of the details. No doubt I could go there numerous additional times and find new and unique photo opportunities I missed on the first two trips! >MJ