As Fort Collins began to grow in the post war period, several new housing developments sprung up — Circle Drive, the Mantz Addition, University Acres, Highlander Heights, the Sheely Neighborhood and several others. Among these was Indian Hills, a development just south of E. Stuart that was the brainchild of Bob Everitt. It has the characteristic winding streets of new subdivisions from this time period as well as ground hugging architecture and expansive building footprints.
Many of the houses in Indian Hills remain largely intact. Of the random houses I selected, there’s only one with a noteworthy façade change. Many of these properties were photographed by the County Assessor’s office while they were being built. (Note the dirt instead of lawns and in some instance, the dirt streets.) It appears there was another round of picture taking in 1967. So I included both photos when they were available.
The selection of houses appears here in chronological order (based on when they were built).
721 Cherokee Drive. Built 1959/60.
720 Cherokee Drive. Built 1959/60.
Note the vertical wood siding in the older pictures of this house. When I pulled out the Assessor’s files, I almost thought I was looking at an entirely different house. But the windows are all in the same locations (though they’re a slightly different style now) and the layout and profile of the houses are identical. It’s all the same building, but at some point in the past several years the house got a bit of a makeover.
733 Cherokee Drive. Built 1958/59.
1804 Mohawk Street. Built 1962.
728 Cheyenne Drive. Built 1962/63.
1901 Mohawk Street. Built 1963.
This house was one of my favorites. It has such a fairytale cottage feel to it.
Based on the information on the Assessor’s Records, it’s also over 3000 ft2. Yowza! This is a great example of how the post war boom led to larger housing sizes. The Greatest Generation had returned from the war and they were ready to live large. (There must have been an addition added between the time of the early Assessor’s cards and now, because the online listing puts the house at 4106 ft2.)
1909 Osage Street. Built 1963/64.
I was particularly pleased to get the above photo that included the older car!!! I was hoping I’d find the same car in one of the County Assessor photos. But no luck there. *snap*
724 Cheyenne Drive. Built 1964.
1901 Osage Street. Built 1966.
701 Cherokee Drive. Built 1967.
Sources for this post:
All of the older photos are from the County Assessor’s “dead files” that are housed at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery Archive. The newer photos were all taken by me in December 2014. All building date information is taken from the County Assessor’s files.
The house at the very top of the article is 905 Cheyenne Drive. I didn’t locate the County Assessor’s record for that one. :-\
1901 Mowhawk was my great grandparents home – Leslie and Madge Everitt. It had a second floor in the roof where they had a game room and was a place for the grandchildren (Stan, David and Claudia) to enjoy time with their grandparents. The pink brick on that home is a tribute to Kansas City, where many of the homes are clad in the same decorative color. My great grandparents were enamored with Kansas City because of the time they spent there during their days with the Long Bell Lumber Company.
This is one of the post war era’s classic Fort Collins Neighborhoods and was my grandpa Bob’s first real shot at land planning and development. Shortly after he moved onto create Parkwood and University Acres. It is still my favorite and one that we looked to in our planning of many other Fort Collins neighborhoods like Fossil Lake Ranch and Oakridge. Thanks for sharing about this great Fort Collins classic.
There’s some really incredible mid-century architecture in this neighborhood. And it seems to be well preserved. I could probably write another five or ten posts just on Indian Hills!
We had a question on Facebook that I’m wondering if you could answer. I know the Tiley’s were involved with the University Acres neighborhood. Do you know if they were part of the building of Indian Hills as well?
I’m sure the Tileys were involved in Indian Hills in some form- I know that our family and the Tiley family had a long working relationship together and both were amazing contributors to the quality of life that so many enjoy in Fort Collins. One fun story about our respective families history in Fort Collins is the naming of Lemay ave. prior to the development of university acres, Lemay was called hospital road. The city planner at the time approached my grandfather and Bill Tiley and asked them to rename the road. He thought that as the city grew, that hospital road was not a very attractive name for a major street. They took the initials of my Great Grandpa Les Everitt and the name of Bills mother, May and created LeMay avenue. Many think it was named after the civil war general but it was named after 2 Fort Collins innovators parents!
Hello, and thank you for all of this information. Super fascinating history! We just purchased a home in this neighborhood at 729 Dartmouth. In our back yard we have some very interesting ruins of (what I am assuming is) irrigation canals or gateways from the past. Our lot is on the , what is now, the “Sherwood Lateral.” Any insight on what this used to be?
A lateral is an extension off of an irrigation ditch. Although I’m not positive, I think the Sherwood Lateral extends off of Arthur’s Ditch (the irrigation canal that runs through the west side Old Town neighborhood and then through CSU, right by the Lory Student Center).
The earliest I can find the Sherwood Lateral is over by the Hilton Hotel on Prospect. And the last I see Arthur’s ditch is up by Lory Student Center. So they both must run under parking lots and/or streets and connect up somewhere on campus.
The Sherwood Lateral fills the Nelson Reservoir. (There’s a nice map of the lateral here – https://naturalatlas.com/canals/sherwood-lateral-848868 – that shows that.) The Reservoir was likely named for the Nelsons that had a homestead in that area. (Here’s an article by Barbara Fleming on the Nelsons (They were actually a large extended family with several homesteads… but this was one.) and their milk house that still stands over by Lemay and Swallow. https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2018/07/26/little-stone-milk-house-lemay-avenue-fort-collins-belonged-john-nelson/833528002/ )
I’m not sure why the lateral is named for Sherwood (nor which Sherwood), but it’s likely that either Fred and/or Jesse Sherwood created the lateral, or it brought water to their property, which was located along the Poudre River between Drake (if it extended that far) and Harmony Roads.