Trinidad veterans memorial gets new replica Civil War cannons

Three replica Civil War cannons took their places at Fort Wootton Memorial Square in Trinidad, restoring the front of the city’s veterans memorial after the original artillery disappeared nearly four decades ago. A dedication ceremony was held Saturday, with two cannons installed at the front entrance and a third placed inside the courtyard.

The project was led by American Legion Post 11 and the Las Animas County Veterans’ Council, with Army veteran Joelle Sissons and retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Ken Beck directing the search for the missing pieces and the effort to replace them. They spent nearly two years tracing the cannons’ history and concluded the originals may have last been seen at the former National Guard Armory near the Las Animas County Fairgrounds in the early 1980s, but no record showed where they went after that.

Once the originals could not be traced, the group raised money and bought three replica pieces so the memorial would not stay visually incomplete. Sissons said the replacement was meant to preserve Fort Wootton’s meaning, while Beck said the replicas were chosen so they would permanently belong to the memorial instead of falling under federal ownership rules that could complicate future access or display.

The return of the cannons also put renewed attention on one of Trinidad’s best-known landmarks at 204 South Chestnut Street. Fort Wootton Memorial Square was built between 1936 and 1937 as a Works Progress Administration project using locally quarried sandstone, and one historical account says Irwin B. Rogers designed the complex in 1936 on land donated by H.K. Holloway. The World Journal’s historical description places the building at about 31,000 square feet, with six 25-by-25-foot interior units, two turrets and Holloway Auditorium wrapped around a courtyard patterned in part after Bent’s Fort.

Living New Deal describes the memorial as taking up about half a city block and says it was once described as the most complete war memorial in the nation. The site’s history also reflects how local control changed over time: the American Legion says Los Animas County took possession in 1942 after a 50-year lease arranged in 1937 at $1 per year for each veterans organization, then returned the building to veterans groups in 2017. The Las Animas County Veterans’ Council now maintains the property and says it depends on ongoing community support.

For Trinidad, the cannon replacement was more than cosmetic. It put a missing piece back in place at a downtown landmark that still hosts community events, rentals and veterans activities, and it showed how the city’s preservation choices are now being made in public, through fundraising, maintenance and visible repairs residents can see on South Chestnut Street.