The Way it Was: A podpast

A hat box of Mattie Lyle's old photographs sat in a garage for years. It wasn't until 2020 that they got their day in the sun - showcasing the little-told stories of Black life in early Fort Collins.

From its earliest streams of colorful electric lights to the thousands of LED-lit strings that now adorn Old Town Fort Collins' streets each winter, learn about the evolution of Fort Collins' sweet holiday lights tradition.

On Aug. 24, 1996, the bodies of two unidentified newborn girls were pulled from a river and reservoir about 180 miles apart in Colorado. While not related by blood, their homicide cases remained oddly in step with each other, all the way to the end when genetic genealogy helped close their homicide cases within just months, 23 years later. This is the story of Hope and Faith.

In the span of three months in fall 1924, Nellie Tayloe Ross became a widow, single mother and the first woman elected governor in the United States. But her journey to the Wyoming governor's office and, later, Washington D.C. started well before the 1920s.

He was a father, a farmer, a family man and natural handyman. When he wasn't trimming trees or slinging cement bags in faded overalls, he was decked in a suit and tie - off to another committee meeting or voter registration drive. You've heard his name. You've probably even been to his beloved Fort Collins park. But do you know about the legacy of Lee Martinez?

In the fall of 1918, a mysterious and deadly flu arrived in Fort Collins. The small college town battled the virus with makeshift hospitals, school and business closures and social distancing. But the flu still targeted its young students and soldiers. More than a century later, here's what Colorado learn from the Spanish flu.

For more than 40 years - until 1999 - Poudre Canyon mountain woman Polly Brinkhoff lived without running water, electricity or plumbing. She had a pet mountain lion, kept her food in a cave and once nearly sliced her bunion off with a chainsaw. More than 20 years after her death, Polly's grandson recalls what exactly made her the last of a dying breed and larger than the no-frills life she so proudly clung to.

In this special, three-part podcast, Way it Was host Erin Udell digs into Ted Bundy's notorious 1970s killing spree. An estimated 30 women and girls were abducted and murdered by Bundy across four years and six states. But could it have stopped cold in Colorado? Find "Hunted" on Apple Podcasts or Soundcloud.

In December 1955, the menacing red phone on Air Force Col. Harry Shoup’s desk rang. But it wasn’t the Pentagon – no four-star general either. It was a tiny voice asking for Santa Claus. What happened next would kick off one of Colorado’s most-beloved Christmas traditions.

On a moonlit night in late September 1945, Nazi prisoner of war Georg Gaertner slipped out of his New Mexico prison camp and into American life. As the years ticked by, he would become the last fugitive German POW hunted by U.S. authorities. Or, as he'd put it in his memoir more four decades later, "Hitler's last soldier in America."

In October 1998, the hate crime murder of a gay Wyoming student shook the world. After 20 years, we revisit the life and tragic death of Matthew Shepard.

When you hear Sonny Lubick's name, you think Colorado State University football. So more than ten years after the longtime coach's tenure ended, Coloradoan reporter Jacob Laxen sits down with Lubick for a behind-the-scenes chat on football, life and becoming a local legend.

On August 15, 1933, a 22-year-old graduate student went for a hike in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. He was never seen again. More than eight decades later, the disappearance nags at Joe's nephew, who's still trying to figure out if Joe's remains rest somewhere in Rocky or if the family rumors are true...

As the nations demands for sugar beets grew, so did the need for more labor in Northern Colorado's vast beet fields. But what did that mean for the children of the poor, hardworking, migrant families willing to take on the backbreaking work? Life was far from sweet.

As drive-in movie theaters shuttered across the country, one held fast in a desolate field on the edge of Fort Collins, Colorado. And it's all thanks to a plane and a movie about them.