Trinidad turns triple anniversaries into collaborative mural project

Trinidad’s history is now something people can walk past, help paint and leave their mark on. History Colorado and the Trinidad History Museum used the city’s 150th anniversary, Colorado’s 150th anniversary and the nation’s 250th year since the Declaration of Independence to build a collaborative mural project that stretches across the museum grounds and invites the public into the work.

The project, titled 150 Framed: A Visual History, was built with local schools and artists. History Colorado said each mural shows a different decade from Trinidad’s last 150 years, turning the museum gardens into a visual timeline that begins in the 1870s and carries forward through the 2010s. The series was designed not as a finished monument, but as an open conversation about how Trinidad has changed and where it goes next.

Millie Duren, the museum’s education coordinator, visited middle and high schools in the area and brought photographs and artifacts from the museum collection to students. Their responses helped shape the imagery that a group of student and professional artists painted on 14 outdoor panels around the Trinidad History Museum. One panel was intentionally left blank, with paint pens and markers available so visitors could add their own ideas and keep the project growing.

That public invitation fits the setting. The Trinidad History Museum takes up an entire city block and includes the Baca House, Bloom Mansion, Barglow Building, Santa Fe Trail Museum and Baca-Bloom Heritage Gardens. History Colorado describes the gardens as a Plant Select site with Victorian flowers, antique roses, grape vines, heirloom herbs and vegetables, and native plants, making the murals part of a landscape that already ties Trinidad’s past to its present.

The history on display reaches back to the Baca House, built in 1870. History Colorado says Felipe and Dolores Baca traded 22,000 pounds of wool for the house in 1873, a detail that underscores how deeply Trinidad’s story is tied to trade, migration and the working lives that shaped Las Animas County. The museum’s own grounds now extend that story through art made with local students and supported by the Robert Hoag Rawlings Foundation.

The project’s opening celebration was set for May 29, from 4 to 6 p.m., and will be free with advance registration. In a year when three anniversaries converge at once, Trinidad has turned commemoration into participation, giving residents and visitors a place to see the city’s history and help decide what comes next.