Larimer County history

Fort Collins was laid out as a town and incorporated February 3, 1873.

In 1874 Grand County was carved out of Summit County and its northern boundary formed a part of the southern boundary of Larimer County.

Loveland was founded in 1877.

A new subdivision was being planned just south of the Larimer County Voc-Tech Center (now Front Range Community College). The land had formerly been the Smith family ranch, and when they sold the land, they stipulated that the cabin on the property, built in 1882 by Henry Franz, must not be razed.

No further change was made in the Larimer County boundaries until the Seventeenth General Assembly of Colorado, in the winter of 1909, created Jackson county out of that portion known as North Park, reducing the overall size of Larimer County to approximately 2,800 square miles, or 1,792,000 acres.

Rocky Mountain National Park, partially within Larimer County, was created by Congress in 1915 to preserve 405 square miles of spectacular mountain scenery including 65 named peaks more than 10,000 feet in altitude.

The front page of the Fort Collins Leader, dated 1936 (vacation edition), is made up of a very similar map.

In 1937 a library expansion project was approved by the City of Fort Collins.

The Big Thompson Project began in 1938.

The project was completed in 1939.

The map was found in November of 2000 when Larimer County officials opened time capsules from the Larimer County Courthouse in Fort Collins.