Roadside Mysteries

There is this brick building on West Mulburry Street. It looks abandoned. It’s an historic building in Fort Collins:

The Grange Hall

Granges were originally estates belonging to English feudal lords but in the U.S. a grange was a meeting place for farmers and their families.

The “Empire” Grange

Like the Left Hand Grange we visited in Niwot, the early granges helped establish land grant colleges and promoted electric/telephone services into rural areas. Organized in 1904, the grange hall was completed in 1912 built from bricks left over from the construction of the local sugar factory. Lee Maxwell’s  grandfather Robert Maxwell donated the land.

And in the basement of the Empire Grange:

Central Heating

Provided by this Detroit Stove Works Jewel Gravity Hot Air Furnace. The Detroit works made furnaces like this from 1880 to around 1920. It looks to have been converted to an oil burning furnace in the 1950’s. Behind the furnace is a (more) modern natural gas forced air furnace that heats the building today.

Also in the basement

Some dancers getting ready for a dance upstairs.

A light saber dance

Apparently on some evenings there is folk dancing at the Empire Grange. On this particular evening the female dancers wore Princess Leia Slave costumes.

NEW! First time a sitting president visits Fort Collins. It makes history. Also, the updated WordPress APP is used here for the first time in the history of my iPAD:

Here at the rally we found CAM the RAM

CAM was first found hiding in the doorway of Shepardson Hall. Not sure if this Ag Sci building was named after CSU Alumni Association Hall of Fame member Charles N. “Shep” Shepardson or not. Could be? Not sure what CAM was doing in the doorway either.

The Monfort Quadrangle

The Mo’ Quad is only one-fifth the size of the CSU Oval so it was crowded with CSU students, but we lucked out by visiting the campus later than most people. We were able to park on campus, we were met by President Obama from his motorcade before he was dropped off at the rally, and we didn’t have to wait in line to get into the rally.  As late as we were, we didn’t miss the introductions  and we didn’t die from heat exhaustion. Yes, we were lucky.

Saw this at the corporate R&D entry area of Kraft Foods:

The animal crackers and the Jello box came not from any business division directly but from a junk store I found maybe about 12 years ago. I still have some of the same boxes in my garage. I think they cost about a buck each.

Today it’s the Wyoming Territorial Prison

The Prison in Laramie, Wyoming

The cells were in the large brick building on the right and inside the wooden fortification were the exercise area and a manufacturing building to keep the prisoners busy.

Front entrance

The is the first thing Butch Cassidy saw when he got off the prison wagon to spend some “hard time” for stealing a horse.

The Infirmary

The prison is now a museum; Originally built in 1872, it held prisoners until 1903 and it was restored in 1989 and is now a Wyoming Historic Site.

Guard’s beds and a few irons

Guard’s view of the cells

Over 1000 men and 12 women passed though these doors.

Prison Bunks

“Prisoner” making a broom

The prison shop made 720 broom a day. Some were exported to Japan and China!

It’s All Good:

Once called “Indian Peaks Brewing”, they changed the name to honor Chief Niwot

Don’t know for sure, but  Chief Niwot probably had his hand in naming this company as well

The headquarters for “Left-hander’s appreciation Day” coming in August. It’s in Niwot, Colorado

Gourmet Pizza AND Ice cream!

Some say they make the best pizza in Colorado. Well, it HAS to be the best pizza place in Niwot, CO.

Where the Left-Hander’s all meet

The meeting hall has been recently updated with new wainscoting, a word not used in this blog until this very moment.

Water is important to Coloradans

… and ditches are important to water. It was time to bike out to Niwot in preparation for the great feast of the Ragbrai (in just 26 days from now). I forgot to get some of Left’s pizza; Maybe next time!

On this blog I take photos and post ‘em when I have ‘em. Lots of people are in these photos and I try to identify the people in the shot when I can. Then especially on the great feast of the Ragbrai (just 45 days from today) someone in the hoard of 20,000 may actually take MY picture and post it somewhere. That’s all good (so far, anyhow?) but I don’t always know who actually took the photo or where it was taken (Iowa, of course but WHERE in Iowa?) They are easy to find by searching for “ragbrai  banjo” and that’s worked fine since 2005.

But here’s a switch: There are candid photos not taken at Ragbrai where I’ve been able to identify the person who took the picture.  Here they are and all of them are in Fort Collins:

Photo by Jose

Trying my best to be as Pete Seegerish as possible; Singing and playing with a group on a stage. What was I thinking?  Note: I’m playing a custom left-handed Wildwood Troubadour banjo made by Mark Platin.

Photo by Tiffani

Talkin’ about the great Cripple Creek Mine (look! No Banjo!). Showing the kids how to pan for gold in them thar hills.

Photo by Kevin

In Old Town, Fort Collins just strumming in the afternoon. In this picture I’m playing my home-made left-handed pressure cooker/table leg banjo.