5 Unknown Facts about Fort Collins Everyone Should Know!
I genuinely laughed at my mom when she told me Fort Collins was ranked one of the best places to live. I didn’t believe Fort Collins had anything going for it other than being home to a state school. To my surprise she was right! According to Livability, Fort Collins was ranked “The Best Place to Live in America” back in 2020.
It wasn’t until I started visiting Old Town that I started to see its charm. Now that I appreciate it a little more, doing research on Fort Collins history has made me even more obsessed. I might even consider living here post-graduation…
Five facts are not nearly enough to encompass all Fort Collins has to offer; however, here are my top five facts you might not already know!
1. Did someone say underground tunnels?
A network of tunnels sits beneath the buildings in Old Town and yes, I said tunnels.
In the past, these tunnels were used for numerous affairs with each shop owner managing their own. The tunnels housed a former underground morgue, and the town’s jail from the 1880s. Shop owners would sometimes utilize the tunnels for storage purposes and send employees to fetch items that wouldn’t fit in the store.
The town's jail was located in the basement of what is now Happy Lucky’s Tea House and Treasures. Apparently, prisoners were chained together twice a day and walked through the tunnels to go eat at the Silver Grill. In the back of the tea shop, you can still see old barred windows along with an old jail door.
Most of the tunnels have now been filled or converted into storage rooms but there are a few that still remain. If it weren’t for a class assignment I would have never figured this one out.
Do you want to explore the tunnels on your own? If so, Fort Collins Tours offers Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night tours.
2. Even Disneyland looked to Fort Collins for inspiration.
This one definitely caught me off guard, I have lived in Fort Collins for THREE years and nobody has ever told me this one. Old Town inspired The Main Street in Disneyland California.
Harper Goff, an artist that was tasked with creating Main Street U.S.A. in Disneyland was born here in Fort Collins! The picturesque streets of Old Town were the perfect reference point for the job. He came back in the 1950s to photograph buildings to use as models for Disneyland. He continued to create numerous projects for Disney and contributed to the layout of the Epcot Center.
Disneyland’s City Hall and Bank were both copied from Fort Collins along with a few others. Goff used these buildings for inspiration as well as images from Walt’s childhood town of Marceline, Missouri. Walt Disney had been shown images of Fort Collins and loved what he saw, I think everyone should know about this one.
3. Fort Collins was Home to the first Black Woman to win an Oscar.
Hattie McDaniel was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedian. If that wasn’t already impressive, she was the first ever African American to win an Oscar for her performance in Gone With the Wind.
Born to former slaves, McDaniel was able to create a name for herself by taking on roles most Black actors refused to take on. These jobs were uncredited and usually maid or slave roles.
She was the only African American in attendance at the 12th academy awards in 1939 and accepted her award for best supporting actress that same night.
Located at 317 Cherry Street, this small house was home for McDaniel and her four other siblings before they moved to Denver in 1900. The house is still here today and was made a historical landmark back in 2016.
Check out McDaniel’s acceptance speech!
4. Fort Collins was a dry town from 1896–1969.
This one is honestly pretty funny to think about, given how many breweries we have here. Fort Collins is ranked 4th in the nation for the number of microbreweries per capita.
Even though nationwide prohibition didn’t start until 1919, Fort Collins enforced it a whole 20 years prior.
In the 1930s the Town Pump was allowed to sell minimal alcohol once prohibition ended. In the 60s university students began to protest the ban which led to its end in 1969.
Today, Fort Collins hosts numerous events on beer and even has a Brewers’ festival where people get drunk in the streets.
5. Colorado State University is a Land Grant Institution
If you didn't already know, CSU was built after The Morrill Act of 1862 which created land-grant colleges during the civil war.
Grants of land were offered to states by the Federal government to fund the new colleges. This caused the dispossession of Native American nations and people who had inhabited that land for centuries according to CSU’s website. The land which CSU is built upon is the ancestral homeland of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute nations.
These tribes and people were displaced due to the creation of the campus and Fort Collins would look completely different if it weren’t for the passing of the Morrill Act.
