Editing Larimer County, Colorado (section)

===Early history===
[[File:Cherokee Pass2.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Wagon trail pass near [[Fort Collins, Colorado]], from a June 7, 1859, sketch]]

At the time of the arrival of Europeans in the early 19th century, the present-day county was occupied by [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]]s, with the [[Ute Tribe|Utes]] occupying the mountainous areas and the [[Cheyenne]] and [[Arapaho]] living on the [[Colorado Piedmont|piedmont]] areas along the base of the foothills. [[France|French]] [[fur trade|fur trappers]] infiltrated the area in the early decades of the 19th century, soon after the area became part of the United States with the [[Louisiana Purchase]] and was organized as part of the [[Missouri Territory]]. In 1828 [[William H. Ashley]] ascended the [[Cache la Poudre River]] on his way to the [[Green River (Colorado River)|Green River]] in present-day [[Utah]]. The river itself received its name in the middle 1830s from an obscure incident in which French-speaking trappers hid [[gunpowder]] along its banks, somewhere near present-day [[Laporte, Colorado|Laporte]] or [[Bellvue, Colorado|Bellvue]]. In 1848 a group of [[Cherokee]] crossed through the county following the North Fork of the Poudre to the [[Laramie Plains]] on their way to [[California]] along a route that became known as the [[Cherokee Trail]].

The area of county was officially opened to white settlement following negotiations with the Cheyenne and Arapaho in the 1858 [[Treaty of Fort Laramie (1858)|Treaty of Fort Laramie]], by which time the area was part of the [[Nebraska Territory]]. The first U.S. settlers arrived that same year in a party led by [[Antoine Janis]] from [[Fort Laramie]]. Janis, who had visited the area near Bellvue in 1844 and proclaimed it "the most beautiful place on earth", returned to file his official claim and helped found the first U.S. settlement in present-day Colorado, called Colona, just west of Laporte. Nearly simultaneously, [[Mariano Medina (mountain man)|Mariano Medina]] established [[Fort Namaqua]] along the [[Big Thompson River]] just west of present-day [[Loveland, Colorado|Loveland]]. The first irrigation canals were established along the Poudre in the 1860s.

In 1862 the settlement established by Janis became a [[stagecoach]] stop along the [[Overland Stage Route]] which was established because of threats of attacks from Native Americans on the northern trails in Wyoming. In 1861, Laporte was designated as the first county seat after the organization of the [[Colorado Territory]]. In 1862, the [[United States Army]] established an outpost near Laporte that was designated as [[Camp Collins]]. A devastating flood in June 1864 wiped out the outpost, forcing the Army to seek a better location. At the urging of [[Joseph Mason (settler)|Joseph Mason]], who had settled along the Poudre in 1860, the Army relocated its post downstream adjacent to Mason's land along the Overland stage route. The site of the new post became the nucleus of the town of [[Fort Collins, Colorado|Fort Collins]], incorporated in 1873 after the withdrawal of the Army. By that time, Mason and others had convinced the Colorado Territorial Legislature to designate the new town as the county seat. In 1870, the legislature designated Fort Collins as the location of the state agricultural college (later [[Colorado State University]]), although the institution would exist only on paper for another 9 years while local residents sought money to construct the first campus buildings. In 1873, [[Robert A. Cameron]] and other members of the [[Union Colony of Colorado|Greeley Colony]] established the [[Fort Collins Agricultural Colony]], which greatly expanded the [[grid plan]] and population of Fort Collins.