A century ago, Berthoud, Colorado, was the bustling agricultural center of southern Larimer County. The town boasted about 750 citizens and all the shops and industries required to satisfy the needs of town and country dwellers alike. It would not be until the decade neared its end that local boys would be shipped off to Europe to fight in World War I and return with the deadly Spanish Flu.

Exactly a century ago in 1916, Carrie McCormick formed Berthoud’s first chapter of Camp Fire Girls. Prosperous citizens, Louis F. Bein and Dr. David W. McCarty, built elegant homes at 748 Mountain Avenue and 645 7th Street that surpassed the quality of any dwelling built in Berthoud up to that time. Four students graduated from Berthoud High School and 85,000 tourists, including several Berthoud residents, rumbled up the Big Thompson Canyon in their roadsters and touring cars to visit the newly dedicated Rocky Mountain National Park.

In 1916, the Grandview Hotel changed management and two people were injured when a train collided with a “motor car” at the Mountain Avenue crossing of the Colorado & Southern Railroad tracks. New brick buildings were constructed to house the Red Rock country school west of Berthoud and the Moon Theater at 342 Massachusetts Avenue.

Frederick Bein, a farmer living in the Sunnyside District northeast of Berthoud, sent many fine draft horses to auction while contractor John A. Bell built several concrete silos on farms near town. In almost every respect, 1916 was a fine year in Berthoud, a community that the local chamber of commerce started promoting as the “Garden Spot of Colorado” in 1909.

The Berthoud Historical Society thanks local citizens and businesses that made the production of the calendar possible. With their support, we continue our mission to discover, preserve and interpret the history of Berthoud, the Little Thompson Valley, Colorado, and the surrounding region.

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