Trinidad, Colorado - A Historic Building Survey
Trinidad Area
The area of southern Colorado of which Trinidad is the hub is rich in associations with the southwestern past. It is possible that Spanish contacts were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it is in the early eighteenth century that we first have real proof that Spaniards came in from Santa Fe. Juan de Ulibarri and a few Spanish soldiers, apparently in pursuit of fleeing Pueblo Indians, were here in the juniper and pinon-studded foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in 1706. In 1719 and 1720 Spanish probes into the region were stimulated in part by rumors of French traders among the Indian tribes on the vast plains to the east. The first direct French contact with Santa Fe that we know of was made by the Mallet brothers in 1739. Their route and routes followed by other eighteenth century Frenchmen may be regarded as the shaky beginnings of the later famous Santa Fe Trail.
Captain William Becknell, who is often called the founder of the Santa Fe Trail, took his pack-mule train past the site of Trinidad in 1821 and over the Raton Pass on what later became known as the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. This was just after Mexico declared its independence from imperial Spain. Being south of the Arkansas, Trinidad's future location had been part of the Spanish Empire and remained a part of the Republic of Mexico until 1848.
The foothills, mesas and canyons surrounding Trinidad are the scene of much archaeological evidence, both historic and prehistoric, of trade and warfare between the plains Indians and the peoples of the mountains and the Rio Grande Valley. During the historic period the mountain Utes, the Commanches, Cheyennes, Kiowas and Arapahoes of the plains were important influences in the region until the white men forced them out and onto reservations, mainly in the 1870's.
During the early part of the Civil War there were some Confederate guerrillas, mostly mounted raiders, in the neighborhood of Trinidad (established in 1861) and then in March of 1862, the Colorado Volunteers marched through the snow past the little settlement on their way over Raton Pass to New Mexico, where they destroyed Confederate hopes in the battles of La Glorieta and Apache Canyon. And it was in the 1860's that Trinidad became a post office and mail-stage station on the line from Missouri to Santa Fe and from Denver south. Very notable, of course, was the location through Trinidad of the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail in 1866 (the first major one of its kind) which, in a sense, was a prelude to Trinidad's importance as a tough and exciting cattle town during the unique and colorful open-range days of the 1880's. Here, for example, one of the biggest cattle companies on the public domain, the British-owned Prairie Land and Cattle Company, ltd., had its operating headquarters, managing many thousands of head of cattle over the vast ranges in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.
Trinidad had more than passing acquaintance with such frontier greats as the incomparable Kit Carson (a superb statue of Carson may be seen here) and the well-known mountain man and Indian trader, "Uncle Dick" Wootton. For a time, beginning in 1882, the famous Bat Masterson served as the town Marshall and kept a close eye on Trinidad's saloons dance-halls and gambling establishments, whose garish premises were frequented by the notorious "Doc" Holliday and others of his ilk. Trinidad has had her share of both the famous and the infamous and her history is both colorful and illustrious.
Morris F. Taylor
Historian
August 21, 1970 Trinidad State
Junior College