Trinidad, Colorado Historic Resources Survey Plan, 2021 Final Front Range Research Associates, Inc., Denver, Colorado Trinidad, Colorado Historic Resources Survey Plan, 2021 Final Prepared for: City of Trinidad 135 North Animas Street Trinidad, Colorado 81082 719-846-9843 Prepared by: Thomas H. Simmons, M.A. Erika Warzel, M.S. and R. Laurie Simmons , M.A. Clerestory Preservation LLC. Front Range Research Associates, Inc. 1822 South Ivanhoe Street 3635 West 46th Avenue Denver, Colorado 80224 Denver, Colorado 80211 303-847-5108 303-477-7597 June 2021 Funded by Certified Local Government Grant Number CO-20-10001 City of Trinidad Historic Resources Survey Plan, 2021 Page ii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 Purpose .................................................................................................................................... 1 Participants .............................................................................................................................. 1 Funding .................................................................................................................................... 2 Project Area ............................................................................................................................. 2 Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 2 Survey Basics ............................................................................................................................ 6 2. RESULTS .................................................................................................................................. 11 Existing Survey Data ............................................................................................................... 11 Evaluation of Past Survey Efforts ........................................................................................... 15 Designated Resources ............................................................................................................ 15 Limited Windshield Survey Results ......................................................................................... 22 Preservation Goals and Objectives ........................................................................................ 24 3. HISTORIC CONTEXT AND PROPERTY TYPES ........................................................................... 25 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 25 The Founding of Trinidad and Its Early Growth ...................................................................... 28 Trinidad in the 1870s: Promise of a Prosperous Future ......................................................... 32 The Metropolis of Southern Colorado: Trinidad in the 1880s ............................................... 36 Trinidad Grows Outward: Nineteenth Century Subdivision Platting ...................................... 37 Continued Growth and the Panic of 1893 .............................................................................. 42 Trinidad in the 1900s: A City Making History.......................................................................... 43 Landmarks of Other Days Gone: Labor Unrest and Change in the 1910s .............................. 47 Trinidad in the 1920s .............................................................................................................. 49 The Great Depression and Public Works Projects During the 1930s ...................................... 51 World War II and the Stimulus of Postwar Planning .............................................................. 52 The Early Post-World War II Decades in Trinidad ................................................................... 53 Trinidad in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries .......................................... 57 Potential Property Types ........................................................................................................ 59 4. SURVEY PRIORITIES ................................................................................................................ 63 Corazon de Trinidad Historic District Assessment and Recommendations ............................ 63 Identification of Subarea Survey Priorities ............................................................................. 65 High Priority Areas ............................................................................................................. 67 Moderate Priority Areas .................................................................................................... 76 Low Priority Areas .............................................................................................................. 82 Identified Individual Resources ............................................................................................... 91 The Brick Streets and Stone Retaining Walls of Trinidad ........................................................ 91 Potential Survey Projects ....................................................................................................... 97 Potential Funding Options for Survey Efforts ...................................................................... 100 City of Trinidad Historic Resources Survey Plan, 2021 Page iii 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 101 APPENDIX .......................................................................................................................................... 107 Previously Surveyed Resources ............................................................................................ 109 ENDNOTES ......................................................................................................................................... 137 LIST OF TABLES 1. National Register of Historic Places Criteria ............................................................................. 8 2. State Register of Historic Properties Criteria ............................................................................ 9 3. Trinidad Local Landmark Criteria .............................................................................................. 9 4. Prior Historic Surveys within the City of Trinidad Listed in Chronological Order ................... 12 5. Designated Resources within the City of Trinidad, 2020 Listed in State Identification Number Order ......................................................................................................................... 17 6. Integrity of Identified Subareas Comprising Historic Subdivisions and/or Areas with Common Construction Eras ................................................................................................................... 23 7. Trinidad Population Trends, 1870-2019 ................................................................................ 33 8. Early Trinidad Subdivisions Platted 1907 and Earlier ............................................................. 39 9. Potential Individual Resources for Inclusion in Selective Intensive Survey ............................ 93 10. Estimated Costs for the Survey Plan Recommendations ....................................................... 98 LIST OF FIGURES 1. Subareas for Windshield Survey ............................................................................................... 4 2. Previous Survey Areas ............................................................................................................. 14 3. Previously Surveyed Historic Resources ................................................................................. 15 4. Commercial Street Bridge ....................................................................................................... 16 5. Early Adobe Buildings ............................................................................................................. 29 6. Jaffa Opera House ................................................................................................................... 37 7. San Rafael Hospital ................................................................................................................ 37 8. Centennial School ................................................................................................................... 38 9. Trinidad Stockyards and the Trinidad Foundry and Machine Shop ....................................... 41 10. Cardenas Hotel ........................................................................................................................ 44 11. Commercial Street from the Purgatoire River Bridge ............................................................. 44 12. Clason 1909 map of Trinidad ................................................................................................. 45 13. Kit Carson Park ....................................................................................................................... 46 14. Trinidad High School ............................................................................................................... 47 15. 1913 March Supporting Striking Coal Miners ......................................................................... 48