Last week local historian Barbara Fleming presented extracts from her 2013 book titled “Legendary Locals of Fort Collins, from Arcadia Publishing.   The legends included early FC citizen Joe Alpert, actress Hattie McDaniel (Gone with the Wind), Colonel William O. Collins, WWII pilot and CSU faculty Cortylynn Hotchkiss, notorious Pony Express agent and gunslinger Jack Slade, Annie the Rail Road Dog, nurse Clara Ray, Arapaho Chief Friday, Ervin and Nancy Deal (Big Thompson flood survivors), rodeo performer Jack Miller, mezo soprano Joy Davidson,  CSU professor Temple Grandin, Shorty Creed,  former FC Mayor Nancy Gray, and hostage Dr. Tom Sutherland. 
 
Barbara Fleming is a Fort Collins native who has long been interested in history even as she followed other career paths. She is a graduate of Fort Collins High School and Colorado State University and the daughter of two professors at the college.  She has been a journalist and teacher.  Now retired, she lives in Old Town (which, when she was growing up, was just “town”) and writes a weekly column on local history for the Fort Collins Coloradoan. She is the author or co-author of seven books, including a novel, and has a new book coming out, a collection of newspaper columns, next fall.