USA > Colorado > Larimer County > History of Larimer County, Colorado > Part 27
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186; horses and mules, 77; cattle, 62; sheep and hogs, 40; poultry, 20; fine arts and manufactures, 121 ; miscellaneous, 123. There were 208 exhibitors and the premiums paid amounted to more than $3,000. The attendance during the four days was about 6,000. Col. John M. Chivington, the hero of Sand Creek, delivered the address. Hon. Alva Adams, democrat; Hon. B. H. Eaton, republican, and Hon. John E. Washburn, greenbacker, all candidates for Governor of Colorado, were among the distinguished visitors at the fair. Harris Strat- ton won the $75 sweepstake prize offered by F. L. Carter-Cotton for the best display of agricultural products.
Under the auspices of the reorganized association, excellent fairs were held in 1885-6-7-8-9-90 and 91, an increased number of entries being made each suc- ceding year, with a corresponding increase in the number of prizes awarded, and in the cost of man- agement which required a large amount of money each year to meet expenses. The receipts, though growing in amount each year, were insufficient to pay out, and the stockholders had to go down in their pockets to make up the deficency or resort to borrowing. They got tired of this after the fair of 1891 and decided to discontinue the holding of annual fairs, until such time as the population of the county had reached a figure that warranted the necessary outlay. Then the panic of 1893 came on, upsetting the financial affairs of the whole coun- try, making the attempt to resuscitate the enterprise and put it on a paying basis an extremely hazardous one for the association and not to be considered.
On December 14th, 1897, the association sold the fair grounds and their appurtenances to the county for a poor farm and county hospital pur- poses, to which uses the property has since been applied. The deed was signed by Peter Anderson, president, and T. A. Gage, secretary of the associa- tion. Since 1891 there have been no regular county fairs held in this county. Loveland in 1892, inaugu- rated a system of street fairs to take the place of a county fair and these have been quite successful.
In the spring of 1904 the Gentleman's Riding and Driving Club was organized, with F. W. Sherwood as president. This club held racing matinees every few weeks that year on the old fair grounds track with much success. In July the club appointed a committee composed of Peter Ander- son, Abner Loomis and C. O. Culver to examine and report lands suitable for race track and fair grounds, which were being offered for sale. The club purchased 45 acres of the Scott-Sherwood
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ranch, located about one mile west of the business center of the city for $6,000, and began at once to fit the track up for a speed ring and fair grounds. The track was named Prospect Park and still goes by that name. The Fort Collins Park Amusement company was incorporated to take over the property, the directors for the first year being C. K. Gould, L. R. Rhodes, A. W. Scott, S. H. Clammer and E. D. Avery.
Improvement of the grounds and the fitting of them for the race meet began at once. One of
of $40,000, the proceeds of the sale of which to be used in defraying the cost of erecting a court house. The bonds, drawing 6 per cent interest, were sold in April, 1887, to Rollin H. Bond of Denver, and on May 5, 1887, the county commissioners awarded the contract for constructing the building to Barney Des Jardines of Fort Collins, his bid of $39,379.96 being the lowest. Mr. Des Jardines sublet the stone work to Kemoe & Bradley, the brick work to John G. Lunn, the plastering to D. F. O'Loughlin, the painting to Smith & Soult,
LARIMER COUNTY'S FIRST COURT HOUSE, USED AS SUCH FROM 1864 TO 1868
the best race tracks, a grand stand, judges' stand, offices, horse stables and a high board fence around the track were built. The first race meet was held October 6th, 7th and 8th, 1904. These meets have been kept up every year since then with a fair measure of success. One or two attempts have been made to hold an agricultural, live stock and industrial exposition in connection with the race meets, but for some reason these have not met with popular favor. Prospect Park is also used for ball games and other amusements of that character.
Larimer County Court House
In November, 1886, the people of Larimer county, by a large majority, voted in favor of issu- ing the corporate bonds of the county to the amount
doing the carpenter and joiner work himself. The building was designed by William Quayle of Den ver. The board of county commissioners was composed of William P. Bosworth, chairman, A. S. Benson and Harry H. Scott, and James E. Du Bois was county clerk. The corner stone of the structure, a handsome block of red sandstone donated to the county by the Fort Collins Red- stone company, was laid on Thursday, August 11th, 1887, with appropriate Masonic ceremonies, conducted by representatives of the Grand Lodge of Colorado. These representatives were Worship- ful Master, E. Love, acting Grand Master; James B. Arthur, acting Deputy Grand Master; F. J. Annis, acting Grand Senior Warden; John W. Young, acting Grand Junior Warden; William C.
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Stover, acting Grand Treasurer; S. H. Seckner, acting Grand Secretary; Andrew Armstrong, Grand Chaplain. A double quartette, composed of Mesdames W. T. Rogers, E. S. Cain, J. M. Davidson and George W. Bailey; Rev. D. C. Pattee, A. D. Abbott, W. H. Headley and George A. Webb, with Miss Carrie Armstrong presiding at the organ, rendered music on this occasion. The address was delivered by Judge Thomas M. Robin- son, which, because of its appropriate reference to pioneer days in Larimer county and conditions then existing, we reproduce here in full :-
"Most Worshipful Grand Master and Ladies and Gentlemen :-
"In the life of every individual there are times when, by force of circumstances, his mind is carried back to his earliest recollections and all his ex- periences pass again before him. This is no vain or idle process of the mind. It is Nature's method of impressing the lesson of the past, to be treasured as precious precepts for guidance in future life and conduct. At such times the past stands again be- fore us to admonish us with respect to the future, warning us against a repetition of mistakes which resulted in disappointment and disaster, and en- couraging with rich promises all who will be guided by its instruction. As it is with individuals, so it is with communities, with states, with nations. Some public occasion arrests the public attention, and causes the public mind to wander back over the years of its past history. This is such an occasion.
"Today we are engaged in laying the cornerstone of an elegant structure dedicated to public uses, and our mind is carried back, not many years, when the territory comprised in this county was com- posed of sterile mountains and barren plains. Savages, depending on the chase of animals as fierce and wild as themselves for subsistence, stood ready with bloody hands and welcomed the adventurous pioneer to destruction and to death. But the old- timers, undaunted by danger and reckless of hard- ship, impelled by dissapointment elsewhere or by the life of adventure here, came, and came to stay. They came and erected homes in the valleys of the Big Thompson and Cache la Poudre, that stream whose name is in itself a perpetual memorial of the vicissitudes and dangers the pioneer had to en- counter. Looking back we cannot see a single ray of hope to encourage them to settle here, sur- rounded, as they were, by barbarous savages, who, it they did not always dare to kill, never hesitated to steal.
"Under such conditions, surrounded by such diffi- culties, the foundations of your present prosperity were laid, and the green fields and happy homes for which these valleys are noted became a possibility ; but material prosperity was not alone all that re- sulted from the work of the old-timers. Wherever they went, whether riding the range in care of their stock or tilling the soil, they carried with them that love of order and fair dealing which is the prom- inent characteristic of our people. Before municipal authority was established or provided, they had their own rules and regulations; they had their own
LARIMER COUNTY COURT HOUSE
tribunals and respected and enforced their decisions. It may be that those rules and principles were crude -that they did not possess the exactness of a science or the fulness of a system of jurisprudence, yet they were conceived in fairness, and founded upon right, and they were sufficient for the needs of the time, and many of them have since been incorporated in our statutes and constitution as rich contributions to the law.
"The old-timers came to the valleys of Larimer county at a time when there was no encourage- ment. They settled and toiled amid dangers and hardships and privations to lay the foundation of our present civilization and prosperity, and when they were accomplished it was protected by no higher law than that which custom gave them-the right to protect it themselves. It is true, that in many things they had their faults, but they also had their virtues. It is true they transacted business in a way we could not transact it now. They could try a case on horseback, hold an arbitration in a corral, or lynch court wherever they could find a man they wanted to hang. But the times now give
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the people more accommodations than were required then. It is the fulfillment of the requirements of the times that this court house is to be erected. The necessity for such a building is now urgent. In times past it was not. The people then felt the greater need of school houses and churches. The first public buildings erected were for educational and religious purposes. They were content to waive for awhile the convenience of a court house that more important matters might not be neg- lected.
"But the times have changed. Instead of the cheerless waste that greeted the pioneer's eye, rich fields of waving grain and kindred evidence of pros- perity are now to be seen on every hand. The tepees of the savage have disappeared and in their stead on every side are to be seen the beautiful homes of an enlightened and prosperous people. Cities and towns have sprung up and thousands of people have come to dwell with us. This change brought with it a vast increase of business and com- merce and has produced complications which require other methods for their adjustment and the times can afford better accommodations than those re- quired in the early days. It is to fulfill the require- ments of these times that we erect this building, dedicated to Justice, and we are only carrying out a part of the work left to us by those who wrought before us. It is for us to complete it. It is our duty, as citizens, to see not only that this building is completed according to its original design, but to see that the purposes for which it was erected are never perverted; to see to it that the officers and all who are called upon to minister to the public here, are capable, competent and honest ; to see to it that they are men who understand their duty and will fearlessly perform it; officers whose characters are such as to command the confidence of all who are wronged and oppressed, and to inspire terror among wrong-doers and oppressors ; to see to it that the judges who are called to preside here are men whose judgment can be influenced by nothing save the law and the testimony. If we do this and do it faithfully and earnestly, the building will be con- secrated in public esteem as a place where innocence and right are always secure; where the ends of justice are always accomplished, in very truth, a Temple of Justice.
"If we engage our five talents to promote the ends of education and religion, with the zeal and fidelity with which the old-timers engaged their two talents-if we labor to promote the general welfare and material prosperity of the county as the
old-timers labored to promote it-the next genera- tion when called by some public occasion to look back upon what is accomplished, will acknowledge itself to be under a debt of gratitude to us, such a debt of gratitude as we are under to the old-timers."
Larimer County Stock Growers' Association
The Larimer County Stock Grower's associa- tion was organized August 20th, 1884, at Liver- more. It grew out of the necessity for a different and more efficient kind of watch and guard over live stock than that observed on the Plains, the range being entirely in a mountainous country. There were represented by the association 2,500 head of horses and 15,000 head of cattle, which ranged on an area of 1,000 square miles. The offi- cers were: President, T. A. Gage; Vice-President, Frank Kibler; Secretary and Treasurer, S. B. Chaffee. The Executive Committee was composed of the officers of the association and the following stockmen: J. H. Bristol, F. L. Carter-Cotton, F. J. Spencer, C. E. Roberts, Russell Fisk, A. H. Morgan, John S. Williams, A. W. Haygood, Fred Christman, T. B. Bishopp and C. N. Campbell. It included in its membership nearly all the stock- men of Livermore, Alford, Bush, Tie Siding, Box- elder, Bristol, Virginia Dale, Laporte, St. Cloud, Granite Canon, Wyoming, Elkhorn and stockmen from Berthoud, Cheyenne, Denver and Loveland who ranged live stock in the mountains of Larimer county. For several years the association proved a very useful organization in facilitating the annual branding and beef round-ups of cattle and in hunt- ing down and prosecuting horse and cattle thieves. As the county grew older and more thickly settled, followed by a thinning out of range stock, the necessity for keeping up the organization practically disappeared and it was allowed to die from lack of interest.
Industries of Larimer County
The principal industries of Larimer county at the present time are diversified agriculture, in- cluding dairying, fruit-growing, market gardening and stock-feeding, stock-raising, manufacturing, mining, lumbering and stone quarrying. Between the years of 1873 and 1885, sheep raising and wool growing held an important place in the list of pro- fitable industries in the county, there being in 1880 about 75,000 sheep feeding on the ranges within
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its confines. The encroachment of new settlers who took up the land for farming purposes, so lessened the grazing grounds that flock-masters were compelled to move into Wyoming and Montana to find pasture for their flocks, so that but a few range sheep, comparatively speaking, are now kept in the county. In the early days of the industry flock- masters were greatly prospered and the most of them made money. Their grazing grounds cost them nothing, so after deducting the wages of herd- ers, the amount received for the wool clip was almost clear gain. In 1880 one firm alone shipped more than 100,000 pounds of wool from the county.
In the list of present day industries, agriculture stock-raising and stock-feeding easily take the lead, as Larimer county is essentially a farming district. The value of the yearly products of the farm and range exceed $3,000,000, and the amount invested in farm property is estimated at $25,000,000. In 1909 the estimated value of domestic animals owned in the county was about $2,000,000. These in- cluded 9,948 horses, 516 mules, 18,965 cattle, all ages, 5,656 sheep, 1,726 swine and 159 other animals. The character and value of the products of the farm for 1909 are given elsewhere in this volume. The feeding and fattening of cattle and sheep for market has also grown to an import- ant industry. But a few years ago stock feed- ing pens of the county contained 400,000 sheep and lambs and about 10,000 head of cattle. The feed- ing pens are filled in the fall and the animals fed through the winter all the alfalfa they will eat, in addition to a ration of corn or ground coarse grain and beet pulp. On this food they rapidly take on flesh and are marketed at the packing centers in the East or in Denver. This business, one year with another, yields the feeder a good profit on his in- vestment, besides making a home market for his surplus hay and other rough forage. The animals are kept in open pens, and require no shelter or protection from storms or cold during the winter, owing to favorable climatic conditions.
Next in importance to agriculture and stock- raising comes manufacturing. From small begin- nings this industry has become worthy of notice as a factor in the growth and development of the material prosperity of the county. Until the ad- vent of the beet sugar making industry in 1901-3, manufacturing was mainly limited to the conversion of the wheat and coarse grains grown in the county into flour and ground stock food. For this purpose there were and still are four mills, two in Fort
Collins and one each in Loveland and Berthoud. 'These mills buy all the wheat grown in the county, thus providing the producers near-by markets for their grain, and can turn out 500,000 one hundred pound sacks of flour per annum, They also con- vert thousands of tons of course grains, like corn, oats and barley into ground stock food, each year, for the feeders. Besides supplying the home demand for flour, the mills annually ship hundreds of car loads into New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Texas and some going as far south as Georgia. In addi- tion to the flour mills there were several busy saw
FORT COLLINS SUGAR FACTORY, BUILT IN 1903
mills in the mountains at work converting pine logs into boards and building timbers for the use of settlers in erecting their unpretentious homes. This industry engaged the attention of some of the pioneers in the early history of the county. The first saw-mill, a portable one, brought into the county was located on the bank of the river near where William Falloon now lives northwest of Laporte. This mill was owned by James Oben- chain and he began manufacturing lumber in 1863 or 1864. The logs were cut in the canon of the Caché la Poudre in the winter and floated down to the mill during the spring floods. Later Joseph Rist set up a mill in Rist canon where he cut out many hundred thousand feet of lumber, much of which was hauled to Cheyenne and marketed. Chey- enne was a booming town at that time and was a good market for building material of all kinds. Along in the 70's the lumber industry became quite important and furnished employment to a large num- ber of men and teams. Logging crews were sent into the mountains in the fall and the logs were cut and banked at the river's edge ready to be rolled into the water when the floods swelled the stream and then floated down to the two mills at Greeley
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and the mill in Fort Collins which stood near to where the Linden street bridge now stands, and there sawed into lumber. The demand for lumber increased rapidly during the twenty years follow- ing 1880 and several portable mills were set up at different points in the mountains wherever there was timber suitable for sawing, and millions of feet of native lumber was cut and marketed in the valley towns during that period. When the timber in the vicinity of a mill became exhausted the mills would be moved to a new site where timber was plenti- ful and more accessible. But the mill men were poaching on government land and taking timber that belonged to the public. This came to the ears of federal officials after a while and they put a stop to the wholesale cutting of logs on the public lands. Since then and particularly since the establishment of the Colorado Forest reserve, the lumbermen have been required to buy the timber of the govern- ment and also restricted to cutting matured trees that have been marked for lumber by the forest officers. This policy has served to reduce the num- ber of mills in operation and to limit the quantity of lumber manufactured, but the annual cut still amounts to considerable, all of which is marketed in the county, none of it being shipped to outside points. The introduction of sugar making was followed by the establishment of other manufactur- ing enterprises which are furnishing markets for raw material and giving employment to labor. The total amount invested in the county at this time in manufacturing enterprises exceeds $3,500,000 and the value of the annual product to about $6,000,000.
A list of the more important manufacturing establishments in the county would include :
Two immense sugar factories.
Two large pressed brick-making plants.
Two large stucco and plaster mills.
Four large flouring mills.
A fruit and vegetable canning factory.
One cement tile factory.
One large foundry and machine shop and several small ones.
An alfalfa meal mill factory.
Two planing mills and door factories.
Several cigar factories.
Larimer county contains an inexhaustable supply of the very best building, paving and curbing stone and flagging for sidewalks, including white, gray and red sand stone, granite and mottled marble. The quarries are located at Bellvue, Stout and Arkins and at one time between 1882 and 1890 more than one thousand men were employed in
them getting out building stone, paving blocks, curbings and flaggings and many of the finest build- ings in Denver, Omaha and Kansas City, were constructed of white, gray and red sand stone taken from these quarries. The Union Pacific Railroad company built a spur in 1882 from Fort Collins to Stout, a distance of fourteen miles, over which thousands of carloads of stone have been shipped to Denver, Omaha, Cheyenne, Greeley and Fort Collins. The railroad company constructed a branch line from Loveland to the quarries at Arkins, which has been in operation for more than twenty years and over which immense quantities of building and paving stone have been shipped. These quar- ries are still being worked and a large force of men is constantly employed in them. The Stout and Bellvue quarries have been lying practically dormant the past few years and about two years ago the railroad track from Stout to Bellvue was taken up. The Union Pacific Railroad company owned and operated the quarries at Stout for several years. There are still a number of private quarries near Stout that are being worked to a greater or less extent by their owners, but the product is now hauled by teams to Fort Collins.
Excellent granite ledges exist in the hills west of Loveland, from which large quantities of beauti- ful granite have been quarried and shipped to Den- ver. In the hills northwest of Fort Collins are immense beds of mottled marble, but these have never been opened and worked to any extent. No doubt the time will come when this marble will be in demand for building and furniture-making purposes. At Ingleside, sixteen miles northwest of Fort Collins, immense lime stone quarries were opened in 1904 and these are furnishing employ- ment the year around to a great many men. Lime is used to quite an extent in the manufacture of beet sugar and the supply of lime stone for several of the sugar factories in the Northern part of Colo- rado comes from these quarries. Some idea of the importance of this industry may be gathered from the statement that the Fort Collins sugar factory alone uses between 6,000 and 7,000 tons of lime stone every year. The stone is reduced to lime at the factory in large kilns especially constructed for that purpose.
Tens of thousands of dollars in money and many years of time have been expended in prospecting the hills of Larimer county for the precious metals, but up to this time the returns in dollars and cents bear no comparison to the cost. They have been ex- ceedingly meagre. Gold, silver, copper, zinc and
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lead have been found in sufficient quantities to justify the keeping up of the search, but never in large enough bodies to justify systematic and scientific mining. Almost every foot of the mount- ain region from the southern to the northern bound- aries of the county, and from the foothills to the summit of the Medicine Bow range has been pros- pected, but not a single profit producing mine has ever been opened and worked. It is probable that the Spaniards who set out from Santa Fe in 1720 and explored the country from their starting point to the Yellowstone in search of gold, prospected the streams of Larimer county for the yellow metal, but they never returned to report the result. They fell victims to the murderous instincts of the savages upon whose domain they were trespassing. Later, in 1858, a part of Green Russell's band of gold hunters came north from Cherry creek to Box- elder looking for gold, but their quest proved un- fruitful. Since that time not a year has passed that some kind of a mining excitement has not been de- veloped at some point in the mountains. The years 1863-4-5 and 6 were prolific in the number of mineral discoveries. Mining companies were or- ganized, claims filed upon and mining districts es- tablished with a full list of officials, and some desultory mining done, but it amounted to nothing. Float copper was discovered in 1865 in Howe gulch eight miles west of Fort Collins, by a soldier. Considerable work was done on this claim and then it was abandoned. The claim remained untouched for several years when it was relocated by W. C. Dilts and given the name of the "Empire" copper lode, which, being patented, it still bears. Dilts sold the claim to the Boston & Colorado Copper Mining company in the late 90's for $10,000. The company expended a large sum of money in develop- ment work, including the building of a large shaft house and installing some $8,000 worth of mining machinery. An 85-foot shaft was sunk on the claim, from the bottom of which a cross-cut was driven to intersect the vein. A few carloads of the ore was sent to Denver smelters for treatment but the returns were of such a discouraging nature that the enterprise was abandoned. The mine contains copper but not in paying quantities.
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