Stout is a former town in southern

Larimer County Larimer County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 359,066. The county seat and most populous city is Fort Collins, Colorado, Fort Colli ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The town was located in foothills southwest of Fort Collins, just west of the Dakota Hogback. It was established in the 1860s as a camp for workers at the nearby stone

quarries A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to manage their safet ...

in the area. The

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

invested in quarrying operation in the valley around the town, and at one time

Colorado and Southern Railway The Colorado and Southern Railway was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I railroad in the western United States that operated independently from 1898 to 1908, then as part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad until it was ...

built a spur of their rail line from Fort Collins up to the town in order to transport stone for its own use. During its time of operation, Stout was also as a spot for the residents of the nearby town of Fort Collins to buy libations. Fort Collins had a 70 year old prohibition, preventing them from acquiring alcohol in their own. Due to transportation routes made for the stone quarry, it was easy for residents of Fort Collins to travel to Stout. These trips would end in excessive drunkenness, causing outrage from Fort Collins and Stout city officials, who worried about drunk drivers being a danger on the roads. The town was abandoned in 1949 to make way for the inundation of the valley by Horsetooth Reservoir as part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. Some of the former town site is located under the southern end of the reservoir. In recent decades, a small community has developed around the south edge of the reservoir, locally known as "South Bay". A sign at the southern end of the reservoir somewhat whimsically proclaims the area as "Stout, population 47-1/2", although the designation is not official it is used by most residents of Fort Collins.

References

Ghost towns in Colorado Former populated places in Larimer County, Colorado {{US-ghost-town-stub