Last night I read an article about the "Art in Public Places" program in Fort Collins. Since some of the art was in Old Town a mile from our house, we decided to take a bike ride to see some of the public art we normally just walk, ride, or drive by. Disclaimer - All the facts about each art installation comes from the City of Fort Collins website (linked above).
Our first stop was at "In Praise of the Poudre" at Willow and Linden Street.
Source: City of Fort Collins - Four undulating granite columns feature relief carvings of the plants, animals, insects and landforms found around, within, and below the Cache la Poudre River. This work celebrates the elements of a healthy river ecosystem and educates visitors about water quality and natural water systems in Fort Collins. In addition to the relief imagery depicting riparian ecology and geology, each stone column has an illuminated surface that evokes reflections on the surface of water.
The four sculptural columns range in height from 8’ to 15’ and are carved from Carnelian granite, a beautiful red-toned stone. For each stone column, the artists hand carved and removed almost half the original weight to create the beautiful undulating forms, which echo the many rhythms and textures of the Cache la Poudre River.
Our next stop was "Conveyance" at Willow Street between Linden and Northside Aztlan Community Center
There were supposed to be three art pieces here but we only found one.
Source: City of Fort Collins -The Willow streetscape takes the form of three waysides that explore the ways that Cache la Poudre River water is conveyed from the mountain top into the lives of the citizens of Fort Collins. Visitors explore the nature of the river through a series of three interactive stops illustrating a canyon, a mill race, and pipes.
A haiku accompanies each wayside to illuminate the unseen and sometimes underappreciated miracle of water in our lives.
Source: City of Fort Collins - The Water We Share is the two-story column adjacent to main entrance. This artwork highlights the Cache la Poudre River watershed. A series of Colorado buff sandstone panels are split vertically by the path and topography of the river. The imagery represents a section of the Cache la Poudre just to the west of town. On the western face, carvings trace the journey of water from snow melt to runoff and river. On the eastern face, patterns of land use speak to the human uses of water. At night, the thread of the river is illuminated by LED lighting.
Next door at 212 Laporte is the Butterfly Cafe. The building has an interesting story.
Source: The Butterfly Cafe -The Butterfly Cafe concept was designed uniquely for the Butterfly Building, yet the overarching vision has been blossoming since Mike and Ali's first days as cooks. Coffee, cooking and baking run through their veins, so when Emmy came on to the team, it was a perfect match. All three of us grew up in families that centered life around good coffee, homemade food, and being together in the kitchen. Between all three, there is over 20 years combined experience in the professional coffee and food business, and creating unique and fun dining experiences for the public has become more than a passion, it is a way of life.
On Thanksgiving 2016, Mike and Ali heard that the historic Butterfly Building was looking for a tenant. They created and submitted a proposal for the space and it was accepted by the City of Fort Collins in December 2016. We officially opened our doors on May 1st, 2017.
Next we headed toward Old Town Square to check out the some more art pieces.
On Laporte Ave we passed more art. I'm not sure who did the metal sculpture or the mural, but there are murals all over town.
In 2004, the City’s Fort Collins Downtown Strategic Plan identified the alleys in the Downtown area as an untapped opportunity for enhanced pedestrian connections.
Here is a list along with pictures of the completed alleys from the Downtown Development Authority.
Old Firehouse Alley is one of my favorites in town.
Old Firehouse Alley extension runs by the old firehouse and jail (on the right).
We made it to Old Town Square at Walnut and Linden. The flowers are so pretty this time of year.
Legend has it that Fort Collins inspired the design of Disneyland's Main Street USA.
Source: City of Fort Collins
Legend: Harper Goff, who created Disneyland's Main Street USA with Walt Disney, grew up in Fort Collins. Harper came back to Fort Collins in the 1950s to photograph the buildings of his youth to use as the model for the buildings along Main Street USA in Disneyland, California.
Truth: This legend is true! In 1994 Richard Francaviglia, author of the 1996 book Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America called Rheba Massey at the Archive to perform research on his book. Mr. Francaviglia had been to the Walt Disney Archives to perform research and much to his surprise he found out that Harper Goff, a former resident of Fort Collins, had used Fort Collins and Walt Disney's hometown, Marceline, Missouri as an inspiration and models for Disneyland's Main Street USA. Mr. Francaviglia decided he would visit these towns and view some of the extant buildings that were copied for Disneyland. The basic information that he used for his research in Fort Collins was an interview with Harper Goff that was published in The 'E' Ticket: Collecting Theme Park Memories, winter 1992-93. Harper stated in this interview:
"Yeah, I was born in that little town... Fort Collins, Colorado. My dad owned a newspaper there, the Fort Collins Express Courier, and I grew up there. It was a very prosperous town. We had banks that looked like banks, you know, and there was a Victorian city hall. I was born in 1911 and these buildings were around when I was a kid. When I started working on Main Street, I had photographs of Fort Collins taken. I showed them to Walt and he liked them very much. Disneyland's City Hall was copied from Fort Collins... so was the Bank building and some of the others."
Source: City of Fort Collins - Places Program and the Downtown Development Authority, the “Art in Action” project set up a sculpture studio in Old Town Square. During the summer and fall of 2010, local artist James Lynxwiler created a life-sized sculpture and demonstrated the steps of the lost wax process of bronze sculpture casting. The culmination of Jim’s exciting project was a live molten bronze pour in Old Town Square, facilitated by the Sculpture Center of Fort Collins. The sculptures were donated to the City of Fort Collins by the Downtown Development Authority.
On our way to our next stop just at the end of the block.
Water Quality Boxes
Fort Collins likes to turn infrastructure into art. We could spend an entire day looking at all the transformers that have been painted all over the city, by the "Transformer Cabinet Mural Project" but today we stopped by this piece.
Source: City of Fort Collins - Artist Andy Dufford developed interpretive boxes to house Utility water quality testing equipment. The sculptural art boxes provide protection to the water quality monitoring equipment and share an educational message. The art elements of the boxes illustrate the filtration process happening beneath the permeable pavers under the on-street parking at this location.
While it wasn't specifically on our tour, who can pass up the Coca-Cola and Angell's Delicatessen ghost sign. So what's a "ghost Sign"?
Source: City of Fort Collins
Signs are social. they identify, direct, and decorate. In a world full of uniform and unimaginative advertising, “ghost signs” contain the originality and history that others lack. Painted by hand in vivid colors or in bold contrast, these signs were left to the elements and faded with time. The term “ghost signs” came about for a few reasons: A ghost sign is a painted sign, at least 50 years old, on an exterior building wall heralding an obsolete product, an outdated trademark or a clue to the history of the building’s occupancy. However in some cases, such as the coca-cola sign, the product being advertised is still a prominent company in today’s culture. They are “ghosts” because they appear when the light is just right, when the viewer has stared long enough to see the specter, or are rediscovered following the demolition of a neighboring building.
This sign's history
This sign was painted over several previous advertising signs. The paint analysis done in 2011 showed as many as 27 layers of paint! Don Brown, owner of the Brown Sign Company and one of the best known sign painters in Fort Collins, painted the topmost layer, a Coca-Cola and Angell's Delicatessen sign, in 1958. The tenant of the building (J.L. Hohnstein Block) was the Angell family, who operated a deli until the late 1960s. As was common practice, the Coca-Cola Company agreed to paint the name of Angell's Delicatessen in the sign in exchange for the "privilege" of advertising Coca-Cola on the building's wall.
Wall sign painters were known as "wall dogs." This title reflected not only the grunt work of sign painting, the often monotonous task of transferring standardized images from paper to brick walls, but also their commitment to their art. Unlike previous generations of wall dogs who had to work freehand, Brown painted this sign using a pounce pattern of his own design. He drew the sign full size on paper and perforated an outline of the letters. Then he temporaily hung the paper sign on the wall and used a powder "pouncebag" to leave a pattern as a guide. In a 1985 newspaper interview, Brown remembered how passersby "would stop to admire the work as it progressed, remarking how steady Brown's hand was." Coca-Cola paid Brown $400 for his work.
We finally made it to our last stop of the day... or so we thought.
Source: City of Fort Collins - "Sustainable Garden" In a cooperative project between the Art in Public Places Program and the Downtown Development Authority, the “Art in Action” project set up a painting studio in Old Town Square. During the summer of 2009, visitors to downtown Fort Collins were charmed by local artist Lisa Cameron Russell as she painted five two-sided steel panels. The panels were assembled into a vertical double-sided sculptural installation. Sustainable Garden was donated to the City of Fort Collins by the Downtown Development Authority and Lisa Cameron Russell.
After about an hour or so riding around this part of town, and seeing all the art we came in search of we started to head home. But... it was a beautiful day and it seemed like a waste to go home. I didn't have breakfast so we made a quick stop at The Silver Grill Cafe.
I came here because I knew I wanted a Pecan Cinnamon Roll. When we got there our sever said they were all out of the large pecan cinnamon rolls but had large regular cinnamon rolls or a mini-pecan roll. I opted for the mini pecan and it's a good thing because I didn't even finish the "mini".
Source: The Silver Grill
Leonidas “Flossie” Widger opened the 1-room Silver Grill Cafe in 1933. Legend has it a hungry sign painter came up with the name and painted it on the window for a pork chop lunch. For 16 years Flossie ran the downtown diner, serving meals to farmers and blue-collar workers. After he sold it in 1949, The Grill changed hands several times.
On Valentine’s Day 1979, John Arnolfo and then partner Mike Gress purchased the 1-room, unheated diner. Mike later left for another opportunity and they remain close friends today. Over the years John expanded Silver Grill into the four old buildings next door. During each expansion, he carefully retained key architectural elements. In the Lower Downtown room are original ‘ghost signs’ for Land and Livestock (1913) and a Real Estate/Insurance office (1922) painted on the brick wall.
After 42 years as owner, John sold the diner to Alan and Jackie Jantzen in 2021. “They’re a perfect fit to carry the legacy forward,” he said. For decades before Silver Grill, Alan oversaw operations at four popular Fort Collins restaurants. Now at The Grill, one of their goals is a big one: sell 1 million cinnamon rolls in the next 5 years. Do it!
When John Arnolfo purchased the Silver Grill in 1979, the 1-room diner sat just 40 customers. For 7 years it struggled. Back then, cinnamon roll franchises were the rage. John wanted to be Old Town’s Cinnamon Roll King.
In 1986, John starting to collect recipes from family, friends, and cookbooks. Each one started with a sweet dough made from basic ingredients. Eventually he combined a 1969 Better Homes & Gardens recipe with others. His cinnamon roll journey had begun.
He was proud as a peacock pulling his first batch out of the oven. But the 18 cinnamon rolls were hard as hockey pucks. He played with the recipe and they got better. Soon he was baking 36 rolls a day. Within 3 months demand outpaced his ability to bake enough. He needed a baker.
Russ Hamilton, a retired German hand baker, answered John’s ad and taught him how to bake the ultimate cinnamon roll. Within a year, John was baking dozens of rolls a day. The diner started booming, allowing him to save enough money to purchase the adjoining building and double The Grill’s size. As they say, “The rest is history.”
Everything we did up to this point is just the part of the map on the upper right side (traveling clockwise). Right about there the "S" is in Fort Collins is when we left Old Town and headed South.
After fueling up on my pecan cinnamon roll, we decided to head South down the Remington Bikeway, through the CSU Trial Garden, through Colorado State University (stopping by the surplus store), around City Park, then home via the Poudre Trail through Martinez Park.
In total we rode 13 miles in about 3 hours including stops for breakfast and the surplus store and just meandering around
It was a fun way to spend a Monday morning
Credits:
Stu Chang and Jannis McReynolds