For 100 years City Park has been a center-point for family gatherings, cultural events and community celebrations. In 2012 the City of Fort Collins will hold a year-long celebration in honor of City Park's historic contribution to the community.
Fireworks Schedule Sept. 16
4 p.m. Time Capsule Burial – Corner of Mulberry Street and Jackson Avenue
5–6 p.m. Twirling Zucchini Trio
7–8:10 p.m. SHEL
8:10–8:30 p.m Fireworks
A FREE shuttle will be offered to members of the community.
A reminder that pets and alcohol will not be permitted in City Park during the City Park 100 Celebration. Learn more about the City Park Fireworks schedule.
Send us an email with your stories and/or photos attached, and we'll post them to this website and Facebook. Please include your contact information in case we have any questions.
Peter Ivy or Doug Perry
Phone: 221-6650
E-mail address:
Details:
Hey Kids! Let's Play Golf! City Park Nine will host a Junior Play Day every Wednesday throughout the summer. A free clinic @ 11:15 with tee times starting at 11:30. Fun team and individual events. Make some new friends and have tons of fun!
The new-fangled contraption, the automobile, became very popular and affordable in the early 1900s. With the advent of the free road map in 1913 and Lincoln Coast-to-Coast Highway in 1915, cities began to compete for tourism and its economic benefits. Fort Collins joined in with an auto campground in City Park in the early 1920s. There were spaces for the auto to be parked, a tent to be pitched, and a little fireplace to cook food. A Community House was built nearby for a grocery and dining hall with living quarters upstairs for the parks manager. Today this is the Pottery House at S. Bryan and W. Oak St.
But tourists eventually wanted more conveniences of home. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the City built a Cottage Camp of 37 cabins just west of S. Bryan St., and south of the present baseball diamonds. There were carports next to each cabin because the auto was so important that it had to sleep right next to you. Visitors came from all over the country including a Milwaukee Technical High School teacher, Arthur Karweik, who drove his Model -T Ford on a four day trip across the breadbasket of the U.S. for eight summers to get his teaching degree at the Aggie School (CSU). He brought his wife Norma and daughter Laverne to live at the City Park Cottage Camp while he went to school. In 1936 Mr. Karweik made a four-minute movie of the camp, now long gone. It is extremely fortunate that his grandson, Fort Collins resident Tim O’Neill allows us to show this valuable piece of our forgotten history. When his mother Laverne heard Tim was moving to Fort Collins she said, “You have arrived in God’s Country.”
