Walk Old Town's brick blocks and you may be reading Disneyland's first sketches

There is a quiet pleasure in walking Old Town Fort Collins once you know that a Disney designer carried these blocks to California. Harper Goff, born here in 1911, helped Walt Disney shape Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A., and he returned to photograph the downtown of his childhood as reference. The fun part for a visitor is that several of the buildings researchers tie to that work are still here to look at.

Start on Linden Street. The brick Linden Hotel at the corner of Linden and Walnut was built in 1882, designed by Denver architect William Quayle, and it first went up for the Poudre Valley Bank. Goff said himself that Disneyland’s bank and City Hall were “copied from Fort Collins,” so a corner bank building like this is a fair place to stand and imagine the connection. The Fort Collins History Connection also points to the old firehouse on Walnut and the railroad depot among surviving structures of interest.

Worth keeping honest: Goff named only a few buildings outright, and the longer list is informed guesswork, not a confirmed checklist. That is part of the charm — you are reading a sketch, not a blueprint.

For which buildings are documented and which are inference, the Fort Collins History Connection’s Disney page lays it out.