Fort Vasquez

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

From the record

“Fort Vasquez is a former fur trading post 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Denver, Colorado, United States, founded by Louis Vasquez and Andrew Sublette in 1835. Restored by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, it now lies in a rather incongruous position as U.S.”
Wikipedia article Fort Vasquez, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 36 National Register listings published here for Weld County · listed in 1970 · category: Site.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site, 1 structure, 1 object as contributing to the listing.
Address. 13412 US 85, Platteville, 80651
When was it listed? September 1970
Category. site
Census division. Platteville
National Register reference number. 70000169 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

221 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 221 fires within 5 miles of Fort Vasquez between 1992 and 2020, burning about 371 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 9 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	152
Equipment and vehicle use	22
Debris and open burning	16
Smoking	15
Arson/incendiarism	9
Natural	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Recreation and ceremony	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters	WELD (COUNTY)
6 September 2010	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters	not named
30 September 2013	Smoking	under an acre	Platteville/Gilcrest Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN
28 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Platteville/Gilcrest Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN
21 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters	not named
21 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Platteville/Gilcrest Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN
2 September 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Platteville/Gilcrest Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN
17 September 2015	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Platteville/Gilcrest Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN

Every fire recorded in Weld County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Fort Vasquez: 1 occurrence, 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Occurrence	Gravel

Every working recorded in Weld County

Storms near this property

26 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Platteville, the town this property stands in, in 26 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 14 hail, 7 tornado, 4 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
September 2012	Flash Flood	Platteville	$15,000	A wet microburst produced flash flooding. A trained spotter observed six inches of water running over the road. An automobile slid into a ditch and was reportedly submerged in four feet of water.
June 2025	Hail	Platteville	-	Report from mping.
June 2024	Tornado (EFU)	Platteville	-	Brief landspout tornado over an open field. No damage occurred.
May 2014	Tornado (EF0)	Platteville	-	A tornado touched down in open country. No damage was observed.
July 2009	Hail	Platteville	-	Two separate storms moved across Miller Farm, near State Highway 66 and County Road 19, and caused widespread crop damage. Approximately 200 acres of the farm was devastated by strong winds, heavy rain and hail. In all, 400 farms were directly impacted by the storms with widespread crop damage across Larimer and Weld Counties.
October 2004	Tornado (F0)	Platteville	-	A small tornado touched down but did no damage.
August 1999	Tornado (F1)	Platteville	-	A small tornado touched down, downing some power lines as well a tree, which fell onto a house.
August 1999	Tornado (F1)	Platteville	-	See the narrative below.
June 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Platteville	-	Dry microburst produced an estimated 70 mph (61 kt) wind gust.
June 1995	Hail	Platteville	-	A large swath of damaging hail up to one inch in diameter was reported at numerous locations between and including Erie to Kersey. Numerous reports of crop damage had been reported over southern Weld County.
June 1994	Tornado (F0)	Platteville	-	Spotters reported a brief tornado touchdown in an open field south southwest of Platteville (28 miles north northeast of Denver). No damage or injuries were reported.
July 1994	Tornado (F0)	Platteville	-	Spotters reported a brief tornado touchdown in an open field south of Platteville (28 miles north northeast of Denver). No damage or injuries was reported.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Platteville	-	Thunderstorm winds, gusting to 56 mph (49 knots), blew across portions of Weld County. The winds knocked down trees and fences in La Salle (25 miles southeast of Fort Collins).
June 2025	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
June 2024	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
June 2019	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
June 2018	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
June 2015	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
August 2004	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
May 2003	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
June 2003	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
July 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Platteville	-	no account filed
July 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Platteville	-	no account filed
September 1999	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
September 1999	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed
July 1996	Hail	Platteville	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Weld County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

1 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Ottesen Grain Company Feed Mill	7.5 miles	1998

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 70000169 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Weld County	All 36 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.