Trinidad History Museum

Explore Trinidad’s past and its place in the American West at the Trinidad History Museum. Featured exhibits such as Borderlands of Southern Colorado and the Santa Fe Trail museum showcase the region's diverse cultural and ethnic heritage. The property features the historic Bloom Mansion and Baca House, two residences built in the late 19th century, as well as heritage gardens and the Santa Fe Trail museum, all on one block in Trinidad's acclaimed historic district.

Exhibits

The Santa Fe Trail was an important highway for more than just people and their goods. It facilitated the exchange of ideas, religions, traditions, and understandings. For generations it crossed the often blurry and overlapping lines between powerful states- the borderlands between the United States to the northeast, and in the southwest first the Spanish Empire and later independent Mexico.

This exhibit explores the Santa Fe Trail through new eyes, tracing the long history of trade and travel in this region. Discover rarely told and frequently forgotten stories of the Borderlands of Southern Colorado, from the earliest encounters between the Spanish and indigenous peoples, to the women of southwest trade, to the founding of new families and communities, and finally the transfer of territory and the shifting of borders that can still be seen on the land today.

Participation in Museum Day is open to any tax-exempt or governmental museum or cultural venue on a voluntary basis. Smithsonian magazine encourages museum visitation, but is not responsible for and does not endorse the content of the participating museums and cultural venues, and does not subsidize museums that participate.