Camp Collins Camp Collins ( also known as the Fort Collins Military Reservation ) was a 19th - century outpost of the United States Army in the Colorado Territory . 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 . Located along the Cache la Poudre River in Larimer County , it was relocated from its initial location near Laporte after a devastating flood . Its second location downstream on the Poudre was used until 1866 and became the nucleus around which the City of Fort Collins was founded . History . Laporte location ( 1862 - 1864 ) . 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 . The initial camp at Laporte was constructed and manned by Company B , 9th Kansas Cavalry . The mission of the fort was to protect the emigrant trains and Overland Stage lines on the Overland Trail from the growing hostile attacks of the Plains Indians . The growing hostility of the Lakota to white encroachment further north had forced the temporary relocation of the Emigrant Trail from the North Platte River to the $ 3 valley . 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 camp was founded near the existing settlement of Laporte ( originally Colona ) that had been founded four years earlier in 1858 by Antoine Janis and other homesteaders from Fort Laramie . Although the region was not part of the Colorado Gold Rush that erupted the following year , the fertile lands of the Colorado Piedmont along the Poudre attracted a growing number of homesteaders in the mid - 1860s . 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 . During its first two years , the fort remained a somewhat peaceful outpost . The fort saw little direct action during its commission and was never stockaded with walls . In the fall of 1862 , the 9th Kansas Cavalry was relieved by a detachment of the 1st Colorado Volunteer Cavalry under Captain David L . Hardy . The following July 1863 , Hardy and Company M left the fort to pursue hostile Utes in the mountains , leaving the camp in control of Company B of the 1st Colorado under Lt . George W . Hawkins . In April 1864 , Company B was ordered to Camp Sanborn to bolster the garrison there , leaving a void that was filled in mid - May 1864 by the arrival of Company F of the 11th Ohio Cavalry , commanded by William H . Evans . The most significant event its history occurred within a month after the arrival of the 11th Ohio . The event was not a battle but the flooding on the Poudre River , swollen from spring snow melt , in early June 1864 . The flood destroyed the camp nearly completely , with many of the soldiers barely escaping with the their lives . Poudre location ( 1864 - 1867 ) . The obvious unsuitable of the site for future use prompted Evans to order Lieutenant Joseph Hannah to begin scouting for an alternative site . 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 site offered the additional benefit of being removed from the saloons and other temptations in Laporte . On August 20 , 1864 , Colonel Collins issued Special Order No . 1 relocating the camp to the site suggested by Mason . The new post , by then known as " Fort Collins " , was fully occupied by October 22 and the Laporte site was completely abandoned . The new site saw as little direct action as the original site , but its proximity to the growing community of new homesteaders , as well as its location on the Denver Road , made it increasingly the center of local transportation and commerce . The site itself is in present - day Old Town in Fort Collins , between Jefferson Avenue ( the old Denver Road ) and the Poudre River . The actual military reservation encompased an expansive territory stretches several miles south of the Poudre , but the actual campgrounds were confined to a small area in present - day Old Town . 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 buildings were of log construction typically for that era and region . A city - authorized sign near the intersection provides a guide to the location of the original camp buildings , none of which survive today . 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 . The structure was relocated in the 20th century to the grounds of the Fort Collins Museum . The subsiding of the conflict with Native Americans , in particular their complete removal from the Colorado Territory after 1865 , increasingly made the fort irrelevant . In September 1866 the post was completely abandoned and was officially decommissioned the following year by order of General William T . Sherman . Site of the town of Fort Collins . Almost immediately , local business owners and residents stepped into the vacuum left by the abandonment , claiming the land for commercial purposes , despite a clerical error by the Army that kept the land officially in government hands until 1872 . By 1869 , Stone and Henry C . Peterson constructed the first flour mill on the south bank of the Poudre , as well as 1 . 5 - mile ( 2 . 5 km ) mill race to supply water power . The first white child in Fort Collins , Agnes Mason , was born in the former camp headquarters on October 31 , 1867 . In 1870 the Colorado Territorial Legislature designated the fledging town as the location for the Agricultural College ( present - day Colorado State University ) . The military reservation was officially relinquished on May 15 , 1872 by presidential order , officially opening the land to settlement claims . The townsite of Fort Collins was officially plat ted on the former site of the camp in January 1873 . The original plat includes all the " tilted " streets in present - day Old Town north of Mountain Avenue and east of College Avenue . The town grew rapidly as an agricultural center in the 1870s , and the town plat was rapidly expanded by the founding of the Fort Collins Agricultural Colony in 1873 . External links . Camp Collins History -