Last Call at the Bottom of the Lake, Marmots Gone Wild

Good Morning and welcome to Vol. 1 Edition 1 of Scout & Tell. I am thrilled to have you part of the community!

Shout out to mother nature for a brief break in the weather yesterday. I got to wear a jacket in the morning, which was a friendly reminder that fall will be here soon. Certainly not soon enough.

Today’s edition is packed full of goodies, including:

See you on the trail,

Every summer, hoards of paddleboarders and boaters soak up the summer rays at Horsetooth Reservoir. There’s a good chance many have no idea a town once stood in the valley below their feet. 

Before it was the de facto lake for Fort Collins, it was Stout, Colorado; a sandstone quarry town that helped build the sidewalks and statehouses across the West. But when it became clear the region needed water more than stone, this little town vanished below the depths of the reservoir.

The story of Stout began in the early 1870s, around the same time Fort Collins itself was incorporated as a town. According to the Colorado Encyclopedia, a sheepherder named William Bachelder homesteaded in Spring Canyon. He noticed the sandstone and began to quarry it. Others quickly followed suit. 

The quarries grew quickly once the railroads took an interest. In 1881 and 1882, the Greeley, Salt Lake and Pacific Railway built a rail line connecting the quarries directly to Fort Collins, Greeley, and Denver. The Colorado and Southern Railway later extended its own spur to the settlement and made it the northern terminus of its line, cementing the town's role as a shipping point for stone. 

The community eventually took its name from William H. B. Stout, a Nebraskan who leased the quarries from Union Pacific in the early 1880s. Before coming to Colorado, Stout had built and served as warden of the Nebraska State Penitentiary. According to a 1964 Coloradoan article, he returned the quarry lease to Union Pacific in 1883, but by then the name had stuck. 

Stout built a boarding house for quarry workers. It was also the town post office, a bakery and even a venue for boxing matches. As the settlement grew, it added a blacksmith shop, a livery stable, a feed store, three saloons, and a schoolhouse that also served as a church, courthouse and general meeting hall. By the 1880s, the town was home to hundreds of residents.

The stone itself traveled far beyond Larimer County. Sidewalks in Denver, Omaha and Lincoln were paved with Stout sandstone, and the stone was shipped as far as Chicago for buildings constructed for the 1893 World's Fair. It was also used in notable Denver buildings, including the Tabor Grand Opera House.

Fort Collins was a dry town from 1896 to 1969. Because rail and wagon routes to the quarries made the trip easy, residents of Fort Collins traveled to Stout's saloons to drink. City officials on both ends grew increasingly frustrated with the resulting drunkenness and worried openly about the danger of intoxicated travelers on the roads between the two towns.

Stout's fortunes turned in 1889, when Denver and other cities began paving streets with asphalt and building with concrete instead of quarried stone, sharply cutting demand for the town's main export. The Panic of 1893, one of the most severe economic depressions in U.S. history, delivered a further blow: banks failed nationwide, railroad investment dried up and quarry operations across the region slowed. Workers began leaving Stout to find employment elsewhere, though a smaller population remained through the 1940s.

That remaining population was displaced by a much larger engineering project. 

In the 1930s, planners began discussing what would become the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, a federal effort to divert water from Colorado's Western Slope to the increasingly thirsty Front Range. By the mid-1940s, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was surveying the Stout valley as a potential reservoir site, and in 1946 the agency set up its field headquarters in Stout's old schoolhouse. The Bureau formally acquired the property that same year, and dam construction wrapped up in 1949. Water began filling the newly created Horsetooth Reservoir in January 1951, submerging the site that had been home to Stout for roughly eighty years.

Most of Stout now lies under the south end of Horsetooth Reservoir, but not all of it. The site of the old boarding hotel sits on private property above the waterline near the reservoir's South Bay, and its stone ruins are still visible from a distance today. In years when the reservoir's water level drops significantly, other building foundations occasionally reappear along the shoreline or become visible to divers exploring the reservoir bed.

Today, most visitors paddle over the former townsite without realizing a community once stood beneath them. Aside from a few surviving ruins and the South Bay sign, Stout exists mostly in photographs, maps and local memory.

In fitting fashion from today’s article about Stout, Colorado, is 3401 Dixon Cove in Fort Collins. This three bedroom, two bathroom home has nearly 2,600 square feet and sits between Horsetooth Mountain and the Reservoir below.

The 1979 build has gone through an extensive remodel, including renovated bathrooms, kitchen and new windows. My favorite spot? The large new deck, giving you the opportunity to sit outside and enjoy a cup of coffee on a cool fall morning.

TLDR; 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,576 sq ft, .39 acres. Asking price: $725,000. Days on market: 29. Full Listing here.

Look at that face!!! This 50lb. Aussie Cattle/Lab mix is guaranteed to have lots of energy, so be ready to hit the foothills to wear out this puppy. Remy is available for adoption at the Larimer Campus in Loveland.

Find out more about this lovable dog at the NoCo Humane website.

🥁 Dance Lessons on the House: Scrumpy's Hard Cider Bar hosts a free open-level salsa lesson at 7:30, no partner needed — social dancing runs till 11. Details here

🤠 Windsor Learns to Line Dance: A beginner-friendly evening line dance class at Windsor Community Rec Center, 7:30–8:20pm — no experience required. Details here

🎸 Music Under the Windsor Sky: The Summer Concert Series returns to Boardwalk Park, 6:30–8:30pm, with local bands and the occasional national headliner. Details here

Friday

🎨 Old Town Comes Alive: The Downtown Fort Collins First Friday Art Walk brings a self-guided gallery crawl through Old Town Square, 6–9pm, free. Details here

🐰 Movie Night Goes Wild: Timnath Parks & Rec screens Zootopia 2 at WildWing Park — come early for face painting and dessert trucks, movie starts at sundown. Details here

🌊 Fifty Years Since the Flood: The Loveland Museum opens "Connected by the Canyon," marking 50 years since the Big Thompson Flood, 11am–7pm. Details & tickets

🎻 Three Days of Strings & Stories: The 36th Annual Rocky Mountain Folks Festival takes over Lyons Aug 7–9. Details & tickets

🍽️ A Taste of Everywhere, All in Berthoud: Sample Northern Colorado's best restaurants at the End of Summer Bash, 6–8pm at Waggener Farm Park, with live music and lawn games. Get tickets

Saturday

🥬 Farmers Market Week Wraps Up Indoors: Wildcraft's Indoor Summer Farmers Market caps off Colorado Farmers Market Week, 10am–2pm. Details here

🗿 Sculpture Takes Over Benson Park: The 42nd Annual Sculpture in the Park Show and Sale returns to Loveland, 9:30am–5pm. Details & tickets

🐮 Milliken's Favorite Tradition Returns: Beef 'N Bean Day kicks off at 6am at the Milliken Athletic Complex — this year's theme celebrates 250 years of honoring the past. Details here

🛍️ Shop, Connect, Repeat: The Berthoud Market fills Town Park with local vendors, 9am–1pm. Details here

🌊 A Free Day for the Poudre: Poudre RiverFest brings free live music and river education to New Belgium Brewing, 11am–5pm, with sets from Cary Morin, Antonio Lopez, Desiderata, and Slow Caves. Details here

🧘 Sunrise Stretch in City Park: A beginner-friendly outdoor yoga class meets weekly at 9am near Jackson Ave and W Olive St, $10 a class. Details here

🚴 Pedal With Purpose: Joyride FoCo's Group Ride #3 rolls out from Lee Martinez Park at 8:30am — a 35-mile multi-surface route timed with Tour de France Femmes. Details here

🍷 Twenty Wineries, One Mountain Town: The 11th Annual Estes Park Wine Festival pours through Bond Park all weekend, 11am–5pm Saturday. Get tickets

🎶 Sound Bath & Stillness: A gentle sound healing and meditation circle settles in at Brookstone Recreation Center in Loveland for its monthly second-Saturday session. Details here

☕ Pour Like a Pro: Lima Coffee Roasters teaches hearts, rosettas, and tulips in a hands-on latte art workshop, 2:30–4:30pm. Get tickets

🌳 Talk Shop With Fellow Bonsai Lovers: Fossil Creek Nursery hosts a free Bonsai Club meetup, 3:30–4:30pm, for all experience levels. Details here

🐝 Bees, Blooms, and Bug Hunts: Folks Farm & Seed's Perennials and Pollinators walk covers bee-friendly gardening, 9–10:30am. Get tickets

Sunday

🎻 Bring an Instrument or Just Your Ears: Loveland Aleworks' Bluegrass Jam is open to all, 3–6pm, free with no pressure to perform. Details here

🥕 Timnath's Own Market Day: The Official Timnath Farmers Market fills Main Street with 25+ local vendors, 10am–2pm. Details here

🪀 String Tricks and Community: The NOCO Yo-Yo Club meets at Foothills Mall, 1–4pm, free and all skill levels welcome. Details here

🐸 Paint a Tiny Ice Cream Frog: Spotlight Café & Creamery in Greeley hosts a no-experience-needed painting workshop, 3–5pm. Get tickets

🐾 Turn Your Pet Into Art: Breckenridge Brewery's Pet Portrait event pairs beer with paint-by-number pet portraits, 2–4pm. Get tickets

🤠 Boots On for a Free Lesson: Country Sunday Line Dancing kicks off at Little Man Ice Cream's Old Town Churn, 6–8pm, free lessons all summer. Details here