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The Santa Fe Trail Museum and Scenic Byway Visitors Center is located and donated by the Trinidad History Museum (A Colorado Historical Society Property) 312 East Main Street, P.O. Box 377, Trinidad, CO 81082, Phone 719-846-7217, www.coloradohistory.org/
Receive free admission with your Scenic Byway Membership.
The museum features exhibits depicting local history from Trail days
through the 1920s. There are displays with Kit Carson’s buckskin coat,
a chuck box from the Bloom Cattle Company, and other objects ranging from
beer bottles to a brougham. Other attractions on the site include the Baca
House and Bloom Mansion. The museum also contains a bookstore, research
archives, and Scenic Byway Visitors Center. The two landmark homes are available
by reservation for groups of 12 or more people and museum director Paula
Manini advises calling at least one week in advance if you want to see the
houses. Museum Bookstore open Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00 am-2:00 p.m. Museum Gardens open Monday - Saturday, 10:00 am-4:00 p.m., for free self-guided tours. Guided Tours Pending staff availability, there is a guided tour of the Baca House, Bloom Mansion, and Santa Fe Trail Museum at 1:00 pm only on Tuesday-Saturday. Please inquire at the Museum Bookstore, 312 East Main Street. Admission is charged. Groups Tours Groups over 12 people must make reservations; five days in advance is suggested. Admission is charged.
For more information,
call 719-846-7217.
Museum Director Paula Manini announced that her application for
the Trinidad History Museum was recently selected as one of twenty sites
for a television and internet project. In a joint program between Denver’s
Channel 9 News and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the museum
will be featured on the Explore Colorado section of 9NEWS.com and will air
in educational vignettes during prime time television programming for one
week this summer. See the streaming video of the museum from Channel 9 News Explore Colorado
The Trinidad History Museum
Located on 300 E. Main Street, U.S. Highway 350 in Trinidad. Step back
in time at the Trinidad History museum, a unique complex overlooking the
Santa Fe Trail. The Museum consists of four attractions occupying an entire
city block. The Baca House and Santa Fe Trail Museum are part of the Trinidad
History Museum, a unique historic site which also includes the Bloom Mansion.
Historic Gardens contain native plants, century-old trees, and a Victorian
flower, herb and vegetable garden, complete the picture of perfection. Historic
photographs, family possessions, and commercial goods on display evoke the
life ways of early inhabitants of southeastern Colorado in the Santa Fe
Trail Museum, which extends behind two distinguished hilltop residences.
The charming museum bookstore has an extensive collection of books about
the Santa Fe Trail and its famed characters and legends. Learn more about
some of the characters from Trinidad's past (Kit Carson, Bat Masterson,
Billy the Kid, and Mother Jones) and about the people who built the kingdoms
of ranching and of coal, the wealth on which Trinidad was built.
The Baca House
The Hough- Baca House was built near the end of the Santa Fe Trail era
by John Hough. John Hough moved to Trinidad with his wife Mary and their
two daughters from the Trail town of Boggsville. His mercantile firm in
Trinidad, Prowers & Hough, boasted that it carried the "Largest
and best selected Stock of Dry Goods, Groceries, Tobaccos, and Liquors in
Colorado Territory." The Santa Fe Trail passed near the house and several
of its present furnishings were brought west on the trail.
In 1870, workers constructed a two-story adobe house for the Hough family. The impressive structure was built using Hispanic construction techniques and English design. John Hough called it "a fine residence for them days." The Hough family lived in the house until 1873, when they moved to West Las Animas, Colorado, where Prowers & Hough set up a forwarding and commission business at the new railhead. Hough worried about selling his expensive house, but Felipe and Dolores Baca were interested. They negotiated a price of $7,000 worth of wool for the property. For an additional $1,500 in wool, the Houghs sold their furniture to the Bacas.
Felipe Baca was one of Trinidad's founders and most prominent businessmen. The Bacas were farmers, ranchers, merchants and civic leaders. Felipe Baca lived in the hacienda with his wife Dolores and their children. The two-story adobe Baca House, evokes the lifestyle of a prominent period. The adobe blends Hispanic folk art with the Victorian opulence of it's furnishings. The Historic Baca House displays a bed and piano from the original Hough-Baca trade, period furnishings from the region, Hispanic folk art, and Baca family possessions.
Santa Fe Trail Museum
The Santa Fe Trail Museum, located in the same block as the other museum.
This is where the Bacas' workers lived and is filled with local artifacts.
Exhibits feature life and times from trail days through 1920, people and
episodes from the Santa Fe Trail period and Trinidad's heyday as a commercial
cattle ranching and coal mining center.
See Kit Carson's fringed buckskin coat on display. This historic adobe building served as living quarters for employees and here you will find historic photographs, family heirlooms, commercial goods, and other local artifacts. The museum sponsors the annual Santa Fe Trail Festival the Second Saturday in June.
Bloom Mansion
Next door to the Baca House stands the Bloom Mansion, a Victorian home
built in 1882. Flower, herb and vegetable gardens, a gift shop and bookstore
are located at the complex. The Bloom Mansion was home of merchant, banker,
and cattle baron Frank Bloom and his wife Sarah. The house is French in
design and is complemented with ornate furnishings. The restoration of the
Bloom Mansion formal parlor and dining room is complete and the house is
fully open to the public. Hand-printed wall papers are reproduced from President
James Garfield's Ohio estate and historic homes in Denver, California and
North Dakota.
The Historic Gardens
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