Bellvue, Colorado
Encyclopedia
Bellvue is an unincorporated town
and U.S. Post Office
in Larimer County
, Colorado
. It is a small agricultural
community located in Pleasant Valley, a narrow valley just northwest of Fort Collins
near the mouth of the Poudre Canyon
between the Dakota Hogback
ridge and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains
. The ZIP Code
of the Bellvue Post Office
is 80512.
, at the mouth of Rist Canyon, concealed from the open Colorado Piedmont
near Fort Collins and LaPorte by the Bellvue Dome, also known as "Goat Hill". The valley formerly stretched southward between the hogback and foothills into the area now inundated by Horsetooth Reservoir
. The main agriculture in the valley is cultivation of hay
and other crops, as well as cattle
and horse
ranches. The Colorado Division of Wildlife maintains a large trout
hatchery
in the valley just south of the Bellvue town site.
kill site along the Poudre River, indicate human habitation dating back over 10,000 years. In the early 19th century, the area was inhabited by bands of Arapaho
, who clashed regularly in small skirmishes with bands of the Ute
tribe who inhabited the mountains. Archaeological remains of teepee rings can be found in the surrounding foothills.
The first white settlers arrived in the valley soon after Antoine Janis
became the first white settler in northern Colorado in 1858. The farm and pasture lands were squatted upon in the two years that followed, so that most was claimed by G.R. Sanderson, one of these first settlers, who built the first irrigation
ditch in the county in June 1860. The ditch was the second one constructed in northern Colorado. Sanderson sold his claim to J.H. Yeager in 1864, and the ditch came to be known as the Yeager ditch.
Another early settler, Samuel Bingham, settled on the west slope of Bingham Hill in 1860. In 1862, Abner Loomis, who was also an early prominent resident of Fort Collins, settled on a ranch in the valley. Other early settlers in the 1860s included Benjamin T. Whedbee, Perry J. Bosworth, C.W. Harrington, and Louis Blackstock.
In 1873, Jacob Flowers
arrived in the valley and set up a homestead on a parcel of land he purchased from Joseph Mason
. Flowers had migrated westward from Ohio
and Missouri
after the Civil War
and had settled temporarily in Greeley
in 1872. The following year, Flowers followed the Poudre upstream and founded the town of "Bellevue" later that year (the name was later shortened).
The area was considered desirable by the Union Pacific Railroad
because of the many stone quarries
in the area near the town of Stout
(now flooded by Horsetooth Reservoir). The influx of railroad workers to work the quarries prompted Flowers to open a general store, saloon, barber shop, and post office. In 1880 he built a one-story sandstone
structure to house his business. The Bellvue Post Office
opened in the building on June 24, 1884. The building served as the local general store and post office up through the middle 20th century, when it became the meeting house of the local chapter of the Grange, a designation for which it is now commonly known. The Bellvue Store is now open the second weekend of every month and shows locally made Fine Arts and Crafts. During the winter the store is open every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Flowers also constructed a track and a bandstand that was used for horse racing
, community celebrations, traveling medicine show
s, and dog and pony show
s.
, Ansel Watrous
(1911).
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...
and U.S. Post Office
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
in Larimer County
Larimer County, Colorado
Larimer County is the seventh most populous and the ninth most extensive of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The county is located at the northern end of the Front Range, at the edge of the Colorado Eastern Plains along the border with Wyoming...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
. It is a small agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
community located in Pleasant Valley, a narrow valley just northwest of Fort Collins
Fort Collins, Colorado
Fort Collins is a Home Rule Municipality situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, and is the county seat and most populous city of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Fort Collins is located north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. With a 2010 census...
near the mouth of the Poudre Canyon
Poudre Canyon
The Poudre Canyon is a narrow verdant canyon, approximately 40 mi long, on the upper Cache la Poudre River in Larimer County, Colorado in the United States...
between the Dakota Hogback
Dakota Hogback
The Dakota Hogback is a long hogback ridge at the eastern fringe of the Rocky Mountains that extends north-south from southern Wyoming through Colorado and into northern New Mexico in the United States. The ridge is prominently visible as the first line of foothills along the edge of the Great Plains...
ridge and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
. The ZIP Code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
of the Bellvue Post Office
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
is 80512.
Description
The community is lush area on the south side of the Cache la Poudre RiverCache La Poudre River
The Cache la Poudre River is in the state of Colorado in the United States.Its headwaters are in the Front Range in Larimer County, in the northern part of Rocky Mountain National Park. The river descends eastward in the mountains through the Roosevelt National Forest in Poudre Canyon...
, at the mouth of Rist Canyon, concealed from the open Colorado Piedmont
Colorado Piedmont
The Colorado Piedmont is the geologic term for an area along the base of the foothills of the Front Range in north central Colorado in the United States...
near Fort Collins and LaPorte by the Bellvue Dome, also known as "Goat Hill". The valley formerly stretched southward between the hogback and foothills into the area now inundated by Horsetooth Reservoir
Horsetooth Reservoir
Horsetooth Reservoir is a large reservoir in southern Larimer County, Colorado just west of the city of Fort Collins, Colorado. The reservoir sits in the foothills above the town on the western side of the Dakota Hogback, which contains the reservoir along its eastern side...
. The main agriculture in the valley is cultivation of hay
Hay
Hay is grass, legumes or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder, particularly for grazing livestock such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep. Hay is also fed to pets such as rabbits and guinea pigs...
and other crops, as well as cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
and horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
ranches. The Colorado Division of Wildlife maintains a large trout
Trout
Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
hatchery
Fish hatchery
A fish hatchery is a "place for artificial breeding, hatching and rearing through the early life stages of animals, finfish and shellfish in particular". Hatcheries produce larval and juvenile fish primarily to support the aquaculture industry where they are transferred to on-growing systems...
in the valley just south of the Bellvue town site.
History
Paleoindian sites nearby, including a large bisonBison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
kill site along the Poudre River, indicate human habitation dating back over 10,000 years. In the early 19th century, the area was inhabited by bands of Arapaho
Arapaho
The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, whose people are seen as an early...
, who clashed regularly in small skirmishes with bands of the Ute
Ute Tribe
The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...
tribe who inhabited the mountains. Archaeological remains of teepee rings can be found in the surrounding foothills.
The first white settlers arrived in the valley soon after Antoine Janis
Antoine Janis
Antoine Janis was a 19th-century French-American fur trader and an early white homesteader in Larimer County, Colorado, in the United States. The first recorded permanent white settler in northern Colorado, he founded the town of Laporte in 1858.-Biography:Janis was born inMissouri to a French...
became the first white settler in northern Colorado in 1858. The farm and pasture lands were squatted upon in the two years that followed, so that most was claimed by G.R. Sanderson, one of these first settlers, who built the first irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
ditch in the county in June 1860. The ditch was the second one constructed in northern Colorado. Sanderson sold his claim to J.H. Yeager in 1864, and the ditch came to be known as the Yeager ditch.
Another early settler, Samuel Bingham, settled on the west slope of Bingham Hill in 1860. In 1862, Abner Loomis, who was also an early prominent resident of Fort Collins, settled on a ranch in the valley. Other early settlers in the 1860s included Benjamin T. Whedbee, Perry J. Bosworth, C.W. Harrington, and Louis Blackstock.
In 1873, Jacob Flowers
Jacob Flowers
Jacob Flowers was an early white 19th century settler in Larimer County, Colorado. He was the founder of the town of Bellvue northwest of Fort Collins.-Biography:...
arrived in the valley and set up a homestead on a parcel of land he purchased from Joseph Mason
Joseph Mason (settler)
Joseph Mason, known as the "Father of Fort Collins, Colorado", was an early white homesteader in Larimer County, Colorado in the 1860s. Mason settled a large tract of land along the Cache la Poudre River in present-day north Fort Collins, and he played in an instrumental role in persuading the...
. Flowers had migrated westward from Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
and Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
after the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
and had settled temporarily in Greeley
Greeley, Colorado
The City of Greeley is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Weld County, Colorado, United States. Greeley is located in the region known as Northern Colorado. Greeley is situated north-northeast of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. According to the...
in 1872. The following year, Flowers followed the Poudre upstream and founded the town of "Bellevue" later that year (the name was later shortened).
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
because of the many stone quarries
Quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...
in the area near the town of Stout
Stout, Colorado
Stout is a former town in southern Larimer County, Colorado in the United States. The town was located in foothills southwest of Fort Collins, just west of the Dakota Hogback. It was established in the 1880s as a camp for workers at the nearby stone quarries in the area...
(now flooded by Horsetooth Reservoir). The influx of railroad workers to work the quarries prompted Flowers to open a general store, saloon, barber shop, and post office. In 1880 he built a one-story sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
structure to house his business. The Bellvue Post Office
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
opened in the building on June 24, 1884. The building served as the local general store and post office up through the middle 20th century, when it became the meeting house of the local chapter of the Grange, a designation for which it is now commonly known. The Bellvue Store is now open the second weekend of every month and shows locally made Fine Arts and Crafts. During the winter the store is open every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Flowers also constructed a track and a bandstand that was used for horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
, community celebrations, traveling medicine show
Medicine show
Medicine shows were traveling horse and wagon teams which peddled "miracle cure" medications and other products between various entertainment acts. Their precise origins unknown, medicine shows were common in the 19th century United States...
s, and dog and pony show
Dog and pony show
Dog and pony show is a colloquial term previously used in the United States in the late-19th and early-20th centuries to refer to small traveling circuses that toured through small towns and rural areas...
s.
See also
- Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical AreaFort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical AreaThe Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area is a United States Census Bureau defined Metropolitan Statistical Area located in the Fort Collins and Loveland region of the U.S. state of Colorado. The Fort Collins-Loveland MSA is defined as Larimer County, Colorado. The Census Bureau...
- Front Range Urban CorridorFront Range Urban CorridorThe Front Range Urban Corridor is an oblong region of urban population located along the eastern face of the Southern Rocky Mountains in the U.S. states of Colorado and Wyoming. The corridor derives its name from the Front Range, the mountain range that defines the west central boundary of the...
- List of cities and towns in Colorado
Further reading
History of Larimer County, ColoradoHistory of Larimer County, Colorado
History of Larimer County, Colorado is a work of history published in 1911 by Ansel Watrous. The book was the first published comprehensive history of Larimer County, Colorado in the United States. It was republished in 1972 by the Cache la Poudre chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution....
, Ansel Watrous
Ansel Watrous
Ansel Watrous was a U.S. newspaper editor and historian. A long time resident of Fort Collins, Colorado, he is noted for History of Larimer County, Colorado, published in 1911 as the first comprehensive published history of Larimer County, Colorado...
(1911).