Drake-Bartels House on the SW corner of Drake and College (FCMoD, H03309).

In 1873, the State of Alabama was given land grants from the United States Government to help fund public education in the state — which, at that time, would have meant Auburn University. One of those grants of land was located at what, today, is the area approximately bounded by S. College Avenue, Drake Road, Meadowlark Avenue, and West Swallow Road. The State of Alabama sold the land, using the money to fund the University.

Less than a decade later, William A. Drake began buying up property in that same quarter section of land, including the land formerly owned by Alabama. There he grew wheat which was milled at the Lindell Mill (the same mill that later became Ranchway Feed and today is owned by Hubbard Feeds). He also raised oats and bred and sold horses. In 1892, Drake began a sheep and lamb feeding operation and in 1900, his lambing operation was the largest in the state.

Drake-Bartels Families in front of Bartels house NE of Fort Collins (FCMoD, H03308).

William Augustus Drake, Jr. was born in Cayuga County, New York in 1854. His family moved to Altoona, Iowa (12 miles downriver from Des Moines) in the late 1850s where William A. Drake, Sr. worked as a farm laborer.

On March 20, 1878, William A. Drake, Jr. married Emma Arnette Darnell (Nettie) in Des Moines. They settled down in Bloomfield, Iowa and William ran a farm. The couple’s first child, Nellie Mae, was born 2 years later.

Emma’s uncle, Zur Combs Plummer, moved west from Iowa, arriving in Greeley in November 1877. By spring Zur, and his wife Grace Alice, had found a plot of land upon which to settle, located three and a half miles east of the fledgeling city of Fort Collins. (They were located at what today is the easternmost end of E. Prospect Rd. right before it becomes Weld Co. Rd. 44.)

Hearing about the successes that the Plummer’s were experiencing (largely in growing fruit), the Drake’s moved out to Colorado in 1882. They stayed with the Plummers until William purchased 80 acres a couple miles south of Fort Collins — on the site of our focus today at what is now the southwest corner of College Avenue and Drake Rd.

William Drake continued to buy up 80-acre chunks of land, some near his first purchase and others near what is to Drake and Lemay today. Drake raised feed for lambs on some sections of his land and on others he raised the lambs themselves, often herding them on to train cars once they were of the right size for sale in Eastern Markets.

Nettie Drake (FCMoD, H02682) and William A. Drake (FCMoD, H06386.)

William Drake’s interests in the lambing industry led him to run for a State Senate seat through the Republican Party. He won election in 1902 over the Tenth Senatorial District which included Boulder and Larimer Counties. He was reelected in 1906. During his time in the Colorado Senate, Drake advocated for ranching in particular and agricultural industries more generally.

William Drake was also the President of the school board of District Number 16 — this is the district comprised of the DeSillio School (AKA Pleasant View School) which was located at the corner of Drake Rd. and Shields Street. The district was later merged with Fort Collins’ District 5 and the school building was demolished in 1988. 

Drake was also President of the Larimer county Sheep Feeders Association, President of the Fort Collins Beet Growers Association, and Vice-President of the First National Bank of Fort Collins.

Postcard of the Drake lambing business from around 1906 (Collection of Wayne Sundberg).

Nettie and William had three children: Nellie May (1881-1922), Edwin Arthur (1883-1958), and Walter Ray (1885-1967). The children attended the one-room schoolhouse known as Pleasant View, or District 16, located on the northwest corner of the intersection of Drake Rd. and Shields Street. 

Nellie married Clyde Bartels in 1903, and five years later her parents moved into town and Nellie and Clyde moved into the house at the corner of Drake and College. 

William and Nettie had a house built at 415 Remington, where the Target is today. The house was very grand and the newspapers of the day felt like its construction was a boon to the town. 

415 Remington in 1924 (FCMoD, H00105).

William Drake continued in his role as State Senator until 1910 at which point some friends encouraged him to run for governor. But William decided against it due to his wife’s failing health (though in the end she outlived him).

It gets a little confusing, but it appears that both of the sons also had houses on the property during the early 1900s. Its unclear if all three of the children and their spouses lived in individual houses on this corner, of if they took turns. (Watrous claims one of the sons moved into the house at Drake and College while a newspaper article mentions the daughter and her husband.)

Drake had several properties, however, and by the time of his death in 1923, the sons had each settled themselves upon some part of their father’s properties. And by the 1930s, the brothers even took one another to court in order to legally divide their father’s legacy between them.

Thus it was that the Anderson family moved onto the former Drake property at College and Drake in 1944. They continued to farm the land until 1965, at which point the site was purchased to be the new home of Ghent Motor. 

This article is hopefully the first of a three part series. You can read the second installment here — At the Corner of College and Drake – an Auto Dealership. The third article will be published on Urban Fort Collins in the next few weeks. 

 Sources for this article:

Ansel Watrous’s book, the 1911 “History of Larimer County, Colorado.”

Several additions of the the Fort Collins Courier, accessed through coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.

Fort Collins History Connection: the source of almost all of the photos as well as dates for the Anderson Farm.

Additional Tidbits

In the 1910 census, the area around Drake and College was referred to as North Fossil Creek. (It was still several miles outside of Fort Collins and was considered a community in its own right, just as Fossil Creek (near Harmony Rd. and College) and Harmony (near Harmony Rd. and Timberline) were also communities unto themselves.

Ray Drake rented out his farm in 1919 and moved with his family to California. They moved back a few years later, moving into a house on E. Myrtle.

Nellie Bartels died of pneumonia at the age of 41, leaving behind 4 children. (The Fort Collins Courier, March 20, 1922)