city, seat (1868) of Larimer county, northern Colorado, U.S. It lies along the Cache la Poudre River (the state's "Trout Route"), in the eastern foothills of the Front Range, at an elevation of 5,004 feet (1,525 metres), 55 miles (89 km) north of Denver. The community developed after 1864 around a military outpost named for its commander, Lieutenant William O. Collins of Fort Laramie, Wyoming. The outpost was abandoned in 1872, but the settlement remained and, promoted by a town development company, grew with the arrival of the railroad and a highly successful sugar beet industry based on local irrigation and stimulated by a land-grant college (now Colorado State University) established there in 1870.