Camp Collins

The fort was commissioned in the summer of 1862 to protect the Overland Trail from attacks by Native Americans in a conflict that later became known as the Colorado War.

The camp was commissioned on July 22, 1862, and later named for Lt. Col. William O. Collins, colonel of the 11th Ohio Cavalry and the commandant of Fort Laramie, the headquarters of the U.S. Army's West Sub-district of the District of Nebraska.

Although relations with the Arapaho and Cheyenne in the vicinity of the camp were largely peaceful, the hostility of the Pawnee and other tribes on the Colorado Eastern Plains towards white settlement prompted the Army to establish the fort as a precautionary measure to protect the trail.

The Arapaho continued to live in villages along the Poudre near the mountains, coexisting peacefully with the settlers, despite the loss of their hunting grounds on the eastern plains in 1861 by treaty with the U.S. government.

Joseph Mason, a local settler, came forth with a proposal for a new site adjacent to his own claim four miles downstream on the Poudre, on a section of high ground on the south bank of the river.

The site offered protection from flooding, had a prominent viewshed of the terrain, and was directly on the "Denver Road", the section of the Overland Trail through the county.

The 300 foot square parade ground, standard for forts of its type, was centered at the present intersection of Willow and Linden Streets, approximately one block from the river.

The site included the standard configuration of barracks and mess halls for enlisted men, an officer's quarters, camp headquarters, guard houses, storehouses, and stables.

The first commercial buildings were built on the southwest side of the Denver Road (Jefferson Street), including the two-story inn owned by early settler "Auntie" Elizabeth Stone.