CSU Buildings and Grounds History

Train Depot, 1920

From CSU's Sense of Place:  A Campus History of Colorado's Land-Grant University, by James E. Hansen, Gordon A. Hazard, and Linda M. Meyer.  Fort Collins, CO:  Colorado State University, 2018.

Architect – Montezuma W. Fuller (1892)

Using the design provided by local architect Montezuma W. Fuller, a small wood-framed train depot building was built in the summer of 1892 on the Colorado Agricultural College campus a few yards northwest of Old Main on the east side of the railroad tracks.  Colorado and Southern passenger trains would stop for passengers here so there was no need to journey down to the main depot on Laporte Avenue.  It was supposed to have been said that the College administration wrote in its literature to the parents of prospective students “Your daughter may get off right on the campus and not be molested (whistled at) while walking through town.”

The building was described as being one-room, 10’ x 12’ in size, and equipped with wooden benches.  The side walls were of clapboard construction.  The ten-inch boards were secured to the framework in an upright position.  The cracks between the boards were battened with narrow wooden strips to provide a more weather-proof seal.  In time the wood weathered and warped and there was not as much of a seal left. 

Up until 1923, the little train depot also served as an official United States Post Office.  During the night of November 20, 1924, a group of students from the University of Colorado in Boulder came into town and set fire to the original Victorian-style building.  This was just before the two schools were to meet to play a football game in Boulder.  Other vandalism was done in and around Fort Collins that same night.   The University of Colorado Administration apologized and paid for the damages. The train depot was rebuilt in a plainer style using horizontal siding. 

Passenger train service decreased over the next decade and in late November 1933, the State Board of Agriculture’s Executive Committee began discussions about removing the now unused structure.  It appears that in 1934, the small building was removed from the campus.  Over the next fifty years it was said to have been used by an unnamed local rancher to store tack on his ranch on the west side of Fort Collins.

In 1988, the little building was acquired by the Fort Collins Municipal Railway Society and moved to Fort Collins City Park.  They restored the building. The former College Train Depot building now stands in Fort Collins City Park and is used as the ticket office for the historic Trolley number 21 of the Fort Collins Municipal Railway Society.