A Little Depression is Good
• A Look at the History of Terry Shores
Quite a few years back, this whole neighborhood was under some pretty deep water. Things dried out a bit and there were actually periods where wild animals grazed. Some of them got really, REALLY big. Things settled out, and although the animals (and insects) were smaller, there was still a lot of good hunting and fishing to be had. So people moved in over the years; many generations of families called it home.
Then the French arrived -- trapping and rat-holing things around -- le cache la poudre and all that.
Anyway — Peter Green Terry came a short time later. He was not French. He was fresh from the Civil War and was out here looking for a place to start a new life and a some land to farm. This was the spot -- just north of a place called Fort Collins.
In those days, you just had to make a claim under the Homestead Act and you've got the land. So Pete was on his way.
When Peter started his farm here, the fruit industry in this area was starting to get its legs. Peter was no dummy -- he went with the flow and began growing cherries, apples and plums. After almost twenty years raising fruit, Terry was approached by the Larimer-Weld Reservoir Company. There was an approximately 450-acre depression in the middle of Terry's orchards, and they had their eye on it. In 1890, Terry sold the entire farm to them and moved to Wellington where he continued farming until his children grew up. He then retired from farming and moved down to Peterson Street in what was now called Fort Collins.
It took the Larimer-Weld Reservoir Company nearly 4 years to complete the dyke, head gate, and ditches to make make the reservoir fully operational. They called it Terry Lake (hey! wouldn't you?)
Gregory Road, approaching Terry Lake from the east, is the same road cleared by Dan Gregory from Nebraska. Dan and his son John were hired to drive the 20 teams of horses that pulled scrapers and slips to excavate the lake.
Through the first decades of the 1900's, water-loving cottonwood trees grew to line the shores of the lake and cherry trees were cultivated east of the lake in orchards owned by a fellow named Whistleman. The road up from Fort Collins, along the east side of the Lake, became known as Terry Lake Road (coincidence? I think not!). The cherry business was so good that Whistleman even built a cherry processing plant on the corner of Terry Lake Road and Gregory Road. It is still there (its a house now).
In 1959, a freeze killed most of the cherry trees. Things got pretty tight for Whistleman. In 1965, he sold 160 acres of his cherry farm to Orm Sherwood and Doyle Kincaid. The 160 acres became the First Filing for what would be called Terry Shores.
The first initial filing contained 88 acres on the west side of Terry Lake Road and 12 lots on the east side of the road. At about that time, Terry Lake Road took on another name — Highway 1.
Between 1965-1970 some very fashionable homes were built here. By the early 1970's, approximately 40% of the residents were affiliated with Colorado State University and approximately 40% were employed at the new Kodak plant that had been recently built in Windsor. The 88 acres that were the part of the First Filing on the west side of Highway 1 became all the lots along Terry Ridge and Woodridge Roads — from Douglas Road down to where Terry Ridge Road comes back up to join Highway 1. In short, all the lots east of the irrigation ditch that runs North to South through the neighborhood.
In 1970, a Second Filing added all the lots along Shore Road and Shore Court. These are all the lots on the west side of the irrigation ditch.
In 1974, the residents of Terry Shores, proud of the community that had grown up here, agreed on a set of Covenants to help protect the future of the neighborhood. Bylaws were written, a Board of Directors, and an Architectural Control Committee were defined. At that time a commonly-owned parcel of land on the shore of Terry Lake was set aside for permanent recreational use of all residents. Over the years, a sand beach was added and two shelters were constructed that feature, water, electricity, and a gas barbeque. Also added to this recreational area was a surfaced tennis court, badmitton court, horsehoe pit, and boat storage racks.
The Covenants were amended in 1996 to update the document in light of evolved interpretations of some terms. The 1996 version of the Covenants that is supplied to all new Association members.
