The Cramer Archaeological Site is an Apishapa phase site located near the mouth of Apishapa Canyon. Consisting of vertical stone slabs arranged to form at least two rooms, the site was probably used around 1250–1350 CE. In 1985–86 James Gunnerson…

The Hispano farmer and sheep rancher Don Felipe de Jesus Baca (1829–74) was one of the first settlers of the Purgatoire River valley, one of the most important developers of Trinidad, and a member of the Colorado Territorial legislature. He is the…

Stanley Biber (1923–2006) was a surgeon in Trinidad during the twentieth century who specialized in sex reassignment surgeries. His clinic, one of the first in the country to offer sex reassignment surgeries, grew in reputation thanks to its…

El Corazon de Trinidad (“the heart of Trinidad”) National Historic District covers a particularly well-preserved portion of downtown Trinidad that includes many blocks of adobe and brick buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries…

A perennial spring in a dry section of southeastern Colorado, Hackberry Springs has seen continuous human use for up to 7,000 years. The spring was also the site of the Battle of Bloody Springs, the last documented skirmish between Plains Indians and the…

Adobe buildings in towns such as Trinidad and the remnants of plazas or villages attest to early Hispano settlement along the Purgatoire River in southern Colorado. Today, Hispanos—descendants of Mexicans who lived in what became the US southwest after…

Las Animas County, the largest county in Colorado, covers 4,775 square miles in the southern end of the state, east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It was originally part of a larger Huerfano County that encompassed all of southeast Colorado. Today,…

The Ludlow Massacre began on the morning of April 20, 1914, when a battle broke out between the Colorado National Guard and striking coal miners at their tent colony outside of Ludlow in Las Animas County. Nobody knows who fired the first shot, but the…

At an elevation of 7,798 feet in the Raton Range on the border between Colorado and New Mexico, Raton Pass has served as an important transportation corridor since at least the start of the Santa Fé Trail in 1821. Despite being on the less popular…

Archaeologists use the term Sopris phase to refer to unique Native American sites found only on the Purgatoire River west of Trinidad, Colorado, and on the upper tributaries of the Canadian River west of Raton and Cimarron, New Mexico (Fig. 1). Sopris…

Located about forty miles east of Trinidad, the Trinchera Cave Archaeological District is known primarily for its large assortment of well-preserved perishable artifacts, such as basketry and sandals. With diverse occupations ranging from the Paleo…