Should We Change the Name of Fort Collins?

For many decades now there has been a small, secret, mostly  underground movement among Fort Collins’ old timers to change the name of our burg.  The name-change movement started as a gentle, local  gesture toward the “de-militarization” of the overall consciousness of the American people. The history of “forts” here in America, after all, is not that bright of a history.

 For a lot of reasons, Fort Collins is a star candidate for a name change.  To begin, if you come to CSU, let’s say from Kansas, as a freshman  and stay until after your senior year, you have the same “roots,” or maybe more, as the fort itself.

Actually, more, in regards to Fort Collins itself. “Camp Collins” was first constructed and manned by the men of Company B, 9th Kansas Cavalry. in July, of 1862, not here in Fort Collins but rather seven miles up the river, in Laporte.  But two years later, in June of 1862, the camp was almost completely washed out in a flood caused by the Poudre’s spring run-off. (“Oh yea, it does that just about every year,” the local Arapahoe natives might have said, if the soldiers had asked. Or maybe just paid attention—since the Arapahoe were camped in Pleasant Valley, south of Bellvue, far enough from the river not to be bothered.)

           So in August of 1864 the soldiers abandoned their Camp and moved east to a bluff overlooking the river, where old town Fort Collins now stands, and where the wagon trail leading to Denver could be picked up. (It was then called “The Denver Road,”  and now called “Riverside Avenue.”) Instead of a camp, they decided to call it a “Fort” though there were never any “fortresses” built.

           Two short years later, in 1866, they abandoned that camp and headed back to Kansas. (It was “officially” decommissioned a year later, in 1867, a year after all the soldiers left.)

So “Fort” Collins was only here– in Fort Collins– for two short years. You could drop out in your junior year and have put down more roots than the soldiers. The “camp” and the “fort” were here for a total of only four years.

And as far as where the name “Collins” came from, Civil War General James Craig (after whom “Craig, Missouri,” was named, 2010 population of 248, which is 61 fewer people than the 2000 population) had a somewhat irascible, never-happy Lt. Colonel named William O. Collins under his command. The cranky Colonel was at the time the ranking officer at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. (Which might be reason enough for a lawyer from Ohio to be cranky.)  Needing a camp to protect the Overland Trail route from Denver to Laramie, General Craig ordered a camp be built in northern Colorado, manned by troops from Fort Laramie, and Craig named it “Camp Collins,” hoping to partially assuage the angst of cranky colonel Collins.

After the wash out of the old camp and the new fort was established near the Denver Road, Colonel Collins, possibly on his way to Denver, stopped by for one night.  “Good job, guys,” he probably said.

That’s the extent of Colonel Collins “roots” in Fort Collins.

 So if you’ve only been to Fort Collins for a weekend, you were here longer than Colonel Collins. And if you’ve been here since 2016, you’ve been here longer than the camp was here. And if you’ve lived her since 2014, you have more roots than either the Camp or the Fort.

So, for these simple reasons a name change is in the hopper. The question, of course, is change the name to what? That could be a fun, multi-year contest, voting campaign, first with a call for name nominations and then with a vote or two.

Early recommendations have been, “Beetville,” “Lilac City”, “Paris on the Poudre,”  “Wisnami” (after “wide streets, narrow minds”) and “Boulder North.”

My own recommendation for the name change is based both on our early history and our geographical proximity to Horsetooth Mountain. As we know, the first hundred years of settlement in our  valley was along the river, pretty much to the north of Horsetooth.  Out west, we all know where the “north end of a horse” is.

But to be polite to little old ladies and people of delicate sensitivity, rather than be crass my nomination for a new name for our town, is “Horserump.”

I’d be open to other suggestions, of course, but I figure such a name would also help stem the runaway growth. Anybody who would be willing to move here to “Horserump” would be our kind of people. Those who are offended, let them stay away, or move out.

It is time to de-militarize our national consciousness. We here in Horserump can do our part. Let the discussion begin!