…For a relatively small town, Trinidad has an amazing amount of history – and not small town stuff, either. The brick-paved streets of Trinidad have time and again echoed with the cries and taunts and marching feet of violence, the roar of guns and the galloping horses of pursuit, the screams of women, and the warning shouts of men.  And more than once the eyes of the nation have turned with surprise and fascination on this small city.

History jostled and jolted its way here on the creaky wheels of overladen freight wagons pulled by groaning oxen.  The Mountain Route of the famous Santa Fe Trail had several routes across the prairies but they all converged at the site of Trinidad and two of the major ones joined at what is now the center of town, the intersection of Main and Commercial Streets.  So, though the first settlers came in the early 1860s to farm and ranch, the town that soon developed was a trading town and a rest and repair stop because of the Trail…

…This was the route of the Santa Fe Trail wagons that chose to rest beside the river before tackling Raton Pass. Notably, you’ll see Holy Trinity Catholic Church, whose graceful spire enhances the city skyline, a once-important brewery built in Italian Tuscan style by a man named Schneider, the second oldest building still standing in Trinidad, the river itself with the interesting legend about its full name, The River of Lost Souls in Purgatory, and Firehouse No. 1 that was also city hall and the town jail. 

No doubt, the two routes of the Santa Fe Trail did not join in the neat gridiron manner that Main and Commercial now have. Probably, the trail up to what is now Commercial curved right through the grand lobby of the Columbian and somewhere along that curve stood the first hostlery on this site, pre-dating The Columbian by 10 years or more.

…Along this way plodded the wagon trains that crossed the river east of town and were headed southwest toward Raton Pass. Notably, you’ll see a building listed in the National Registry of Historic Sites, the Baca House-Bloom Mansion-Santa Fe Trail Museum complex of the Colorado Historical Society, some stately homes on “Aristocracy Hill”, Colorado’s oldest continuously utilized Jewish synagogue, the handsome County Courthouse, and an outstanding museum of western art.

…This is where the action once was, the major clustering of gambling halls, saloons, bordellos, and cribs. Every four years, for about a century, promises were made to clean up West Main, but after elections, it was back to what passed for normal. Notably, included in this section of the tour, you’ll see yet another building listed in the National Registry of Historic Places, an imaginative redevelopment of a burned-out building, a handsome monument to the coal mining industry, a small jewel of a building authentically restored, an ornate and once magnificent theatre, City Hall with its eclectic architectural details, and a classic Carnegie Library.