The next time you walk into Fort Collins’ UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital, think of land as far as the eye can see — and livestock. That’s what used to occupy the hospital’s swath along present-day Lemay Avenue.
Once located east of Fort Collins, the 40-acre parcel on which the hospital partially sits was home to the first Larimer County Fair, which took place there from 1879 to 1891 before picking up again in Loveland in 1912, according to late Coloradoan history columnist Barbara Fleming.
Larimer County later purchased the land and established its “poor farm” and “Old Folks Home” there. Before modern welfare programs, government-funded poor farms, like the one in Larimer County, housed and supported impoverished and elderly county residents…