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Roadside Tour Overview

The area discussed in this website lies in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains, tucked up against Wyoming, in the northeast section of Larimer County. It includes most but not all of the watershed of the North Fork of the Cache La Poudre River (also called the North Fork or the North Poudre) which is about 385,000 acres and is somewhat larger than the Livermore Zip Code area 80536; Red Feather Lakes has its own Post Office.  The story told in this website extends somewhat beyond these boundaries to the south down to the Main Poudre to reflect historic facts that both sides of Red Feather Lakes Road are part of this community including areas where the water flows directly into the Main Poudre, not the North Poudre. This is true of all of Glacier View Meadows (Gordon Creek is the main collector) and to the west where the Elkhorn Creek, flows into the Main Poudre.  These areas were tied together in terms of historical development, since the Poudre Canon was not readily passable until the 1920s and until then 74E was the designated State Road.

The map below shows the extent of the Livermore 80536 Zip Code  which is the approximate area of the watershed of the North Fork of the Cache la Poudre river.  

The watershed actually extends into Wyoming and further to the west to include the Red Feather-Crystal Lakes-Beaver Meadows area as shown in the following satellite photo of the North Fork of the Poudre Watershed. 

The Livermore Postal Service area begins at the junction of US 287 and CR 74E, where the Livermore Post Office is located (see map below).  I will refer to this small area as the Livermore Village to distinguish it from the larger postal service area. The southern boundary extends 17 miles along 74E to Log Cabin (the junction of Boy Scout Road, CR 68C). The eastern boundary is generally US 287 to the Wyoming border. The Red Feather Lakes Postal Service area covers the area to the west of the Livermore Postal Service Area.  In the early days, according to Ansel Watrous’ 1911 History of Larimer Country, Livermore included the Red Feather Lakes area all the way to the Continental Divide.

There are two southern boundaries, the primary one is Red Feather Lakes Road (CR 74E), which starts at the Forks (US 287) and runs in a zigzag fashion west to the village of Red Feather Lakes, approximately 23 miles from the Forks. The pavement ends shortly after the Village and a gravel road, CR 162, Deadman Road, continues towards the Continental Divide and connects with North Park on the other side. Poudre Canon Road  is another southern boundary because quite a bit of land on the south side of Red Feather Lakes Road, as stated above, is integrally part of this community, even if it is not properly part of the North Poudre Watershed.

The following figure is one I drew from a variety of maps to highlight items of interest without including too much detail.

Place Designations: GVM = Glacier View Meadows, LC = Log Cabin, RFL = Red Feather Lakes, M= Manhattan, Pingree Hill, CPTE = Cherokee Park, Trails End.

Roads: Major (paved) in solid lines, secondary (gravel) in dashed. The table below provides the official road designation (CR = Country Road), commonly used names, destinations and connections to other roads.

Two major roads define our boundaries.  On the south  is CR 14, Poudre Canyon Road, and on the east is US 287, Laramie Road. 

To summarize the confusing road designations: 

• CR 162 refers to Manhattan Road and to Deadman Road, 
• CR 73 refers to Weymouth Lane near Livermore and to Red Mountain Road which branches off CR 287 about 5 miles north of Livermore.
• Prairie Divide is labeled both CR 67J and CR 179, 
• Cherokee Park Road refers to the first part of 80C and to CR 69 that forks north at Cherokee Park and goes to Wyoming, 

Understanding the Land: Rivers and Roads

The land provides us with the opportunities and the challenges.  It tells us what we can, and can not do. The land dictates land-use patterns.  When humans are wise and work with the land, success is greater than when the attempt is to conquer nature.  Nature wins in the long run.  For example, we know that all man-made dams will eventually silt-up and some time in the future no longer hold water.  This point of view is not universally held, but it is widely held, and adherents grow steadily.  We should also add climate to the picture.  Climate clearly has affected the ranching community, putting some ranchers out of business, with their property bought up by more successful ranchers.  

As we delve into the history of our community we shall see the opportunities and challenges provided by the land and the climate.  There have been snow storms that shut down communities, and heavy downpours which moved houses off their foundations.  The Homestead Act of 1862 provided for 160 acres to a family willing live on the land for five years and make improvements, but 160 acres in a semi-arid climate that characterizes this area is insufficient.  So this fact is a driver for early land use patterns.  Science has learned a lot about microclimates (see below) and what makes some places more attractive than others.  

A microclimate is a local atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square feet (for example a garden bed) or as large as many square miles (for example a valley). Microclimates exist, for example, near bodies of water which may cool the local atmosphere, or in heavily urban areas where brick, concrete, and asphalt absorb the sun's energy, heat up, and reradiate that heat to the ambient air: the resulting urban heat island is a kind of microclimate. Another contributory factor to microclimate is the slope or aspect of an area. South-facing slopes in the Northern Hemisphere and north-facing slopes in the Southern Hemisphere are exposed to more direct sunlight than opposite slopes and are therefore warmer for longer.  From Wikipedia.

On a personal note, part of my motivation for learning the history of our community, was the question: Why did Solomon and Mary Batterson homestead where they did, rather than somewhere else?  Coming in 1870, as they did, they were one of the early settlers and they had lots of choices.  I believe I know the answer, which you can find at the end of the section Batterson Barn and Homestead.  Microclimate is part of the answer.  The Batterson property is a favorable microclimate.

In the winter the Rocky Mountains capture the snow, pilling it deep and holding it until spring when it melts slowly (ideally) and runs into depressions in the land, into small creeks and bigger creeks, into mountain rivers, down the slopes out onto the plains, to the South Platte, the Mississippi River and then into the gulf of Mexico. Much of the water sinks into the ground, into aquifers on the plains which store the water for centuries until farmers and homeowners dig wells to pump the water to the surface to drink, wash clothes, irrigate crops, and produce green lawns and golf courses. Water in the ground near the surface sometimes travels only short distances to emerge as a spring or marshy area. As you drive the roads in this area you will see these features. The Red Feather Lakes were marshes until irrigation ditches from nearby creeks brought in large volumes of water.  We are unfortunately using up our ground water.  

In the past several years, as the ground water on the eastern plains, the Ogallala Aquifer, has receded, the State Engineer has ordered farm and ranch wells shut down, with obvious negative consequences to those affected.  The reason is ground water is legally (as well as geologically) connected to surface water in creeks and rivers.  Depleting the ground water was negatively impacting South Platte flows and legal requirements for flow amounts to down-stream states and their water users.

Understanding water and the rivers and ditches which move the water, the reservoirs which hold the water until the farmers and cities want to use the water, is the key to understanding the past, present and future of the west.  Whether on the plains or in the mountains, rivers and streams generally served as the original transportation corridors, and defined where people homesteaded and where towns developed. 

However, as Don Weixelman points out in his notes, sometimes the roads did not (could not) follow the rivers and instead went along the ridge lines to avoid the steep and rocky canyon bottoms, or for better visibility of routes to follow, or protection from Indian attacks.  The Poudre River Canyon in the early years was limited as a transportation corridor to the west because it was one of those steep and rocky canon bottoms and unsuitable for wagons.  Thus alternative routes were needed to cross the Rockies to reach North Park and areas beyond, on the other side of the Rocky Mountains.  

One of the routes developed was a wagon trail that began at La Porte (just west of Fort Collins, alternative spelling is Laporte), now designated as CR 74E and commonly called Red Feather Lakes Road (because it takes you to the Red Feather Lakes area). Wagon and stage roads of course were derived from trails which were established by the early trappers and hunters and the very first trails were established by the indigenous peoples, the Utes and Arapahoe.  Early on this route (74E) was called the Zimmerman Stage because Mr. Zimmerman built a destination hotel called the Keystone on the Poudre River and established a stage to bring guests to his hotel.  Of course his stage did more than that, it also transported materials to ranchers, tie hacks (men cutting timber for the railroads) men constructing the road up the Poudre, over Cameron Pass to North Park on the other side of the Rockies and to those men building lakes, ditches and reservoirs.  When it ceased being a toll road it was called the State Road.  Present day 74E follows generally the early stage road, with some exceptions discussed later in the 74 E Red Feather Lakes Road tour.  

The most famous stage road in this area was the Overland Stage Road which carried travelers from La Porte and Fort Collins to Laramie Wyoming and thence to South Pass, the lowest pass over the northern Rocky Mountains, where the trails branched north to the Oregon Trail, middle to California, and south to Utah (the Morgan Trail).  Present day US 287 follows the same route and is also known as (aka) the Laramie Highway because of its destination.  Transition Time has more on this subject.

Map of Livermore Park

Livermore Park  is an area roughly 30 square miles (shown in the above map) which is fairly level and supplied with quite a bit of water, which is why it is excellent cattle country with quite a few active ranches.  It is roughly a pie shaped area emanating from the Livermore Village on the east, stretching 6 miles west and  5 miles north (at the western boundary). The park was formed by a "drop block" - a block or slab which stayed stationary while the surrounding land was up-lifted, caused by faults running east-west on the south and on the north, thus creating a nearly level valley with hills on three sides.  As I view the park from Goggle Earth I see three parts, a south, a north and a middle section on the east which connects the south and north parts.

• The southern section is the Lone Pine Creek and land on both sides of 74E up to Kahler Hill including the North Poudre below 74E.
• The northern section is defined by Rabbit Creek with three forks and the land along 80C, Cherokee Park Road up to Calloway Hill.
• The middle section is the area closest to Livermore Village and bounded on the south by 74E,  on the north by 80C and on the west by 76H.

West of CR73, Weymouth Lane is a gradually elevating ridge which separates south and north park.

With this orientation, you are ready to begin your road tours.

• 74 E Red Feather Lakes Road
• 74 E McNey Hill to Red Feather Lakes
• 68C Boy Scout Road and the Elkhorn Creek drainage
• 179 Prairie Divide Road
• 80C Cherokee Park Road

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