Joseph Antoine Janis was born in St. Charles, Missouri, in 1824. He made a claim on the Cache la Poudre River in 1814, intending to return later to build a home. In the summer of 1859, Antoine Janis, his Oglala wife First Elk Woman and their children moved from Fort Laramie, Wyoming, to homestead the 160-acre site west of present day La Porte, an area Janis called "the loveliest spot on earth."
Antoine Janis built this cabin of ponderosa pine, cut flat on the exterior and interior sides with a broadax, a tool designed for flattening logs. Vertical score cuts still mark the length of each log. The half dovetail corner notches form a self-draining and permanently interlocked notching system.
Janis and other settlers established Colona, the first townsite in Larimer County. In addition to farming, Janis worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army in 1855, earning an annual salary of $400. He served as a for-hire guide, gold prospector, fur trapper and trader. In 1878, the U.S. government forced the relocation of the Oglala Indians to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, compelling Antoine to move. In 1880 he sold his cabin for $4,500. Janis lived on the reservation with his family until his death in 1890. Fort Collins citizens moved the Janis cabin to Library Park in 1939, and reconstructed it as part of the Works Project Administration (WPA) program.
The Fort Collins Museum grew from this early historic preservation effort.
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