PRESS CONTACT:
Angelika Albaladejo, Communications and Public Relations Manager
720-541-2334 | hc_media@state.co.us

 

150 Framed: A Visual History is a collaborative mural project created by the Trinidad History Museum in partnership with local schools and artists to honor a special commemoration this year. Trinidad officially became a town 150 years ago – just a few months before Colorado became a state. And because Colorado is the only state to share an anniversary with the United States, it has also been 250 years since the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. 

The Trinidad History Museum set out to engage the community in telling these stories through art. Millie Duren, the museum’s education coordinator, visited local middle and high schools to teach about the major turning points and trends in Trinidad’s history – sharing photographs and artifacts from the museum’s collection to inspire the students. Students then came up with ideas for how to visualize these moments in time. Their interpretations became inspiration for various student and professional artists who are painting outdoor murals depicting these defining moments in the town’s history. 

“Trinidad’s 150th anniversary has been such a wonderful opportunity to connect with students as a museum educator and watch them engage with local history,” said Millie Duren, the Trinidad History Museum’s education coordinator. “The inspiration that students from 4th through 12th grade provided to the artists encouraged this visual timeline to reflect on where we’ve been and also look forward to where we want to go.” 

Through this series of 15 art panels, 150 Framed explores Trinidad’s past – with each panel of the mural representing a decade from the 1870s through the 2010s. A final blank panel with paint pens and markers will invite visitors to add their vision for the next 150 years. 150 Framed is made possible by the generous support of the Robert Hoag Rawlings Foundation.

The Trinidad History Museum is unveiling this visual timeline of the city with an opening celebration on the evening of May 29 from 4 – 6 pm. The opening is free and open to the public with advance registration. 

The Trinidad History Museum occupies an entire city block with the Santa Fe Trail museum, historic buildings – the Baca House, the Barglow Building, and the Bloom Mansion (currently closed for maintenance) – and an expansive outdoor space known as the Baca-Bloom Heritage Gardens. 

The gardens are free for the community to enjoy, and throughout the summer, the 150 Framed murals will be on display across the outdoor space. Visitors can also dig deeper into the stories portrayed in the murals through the museum’s exhibitions tracing the significance of the Santa Fe Trail, fascinating photo portraits shot in the late-1800s, and artifacts from traditional healing practices. Museum admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, and free for children and History Colorado members. 

“It is our hope that as you walk through these gardens and the museum, you may find yourself within them,” said Marggie Ferrendelli, the director of the Trinidad History Museum. “Through the 150 Framed mural project, the students and artists making these murals are weaving together art and history, and telling the stories we all share. The Trinidad History Museum is honored to be bringing history to life and helping the past find a new voice through color and form.” 

The Trinidad History Museum is also taking on another project during this triple anniversary year that is long desired by community members and History Colorado staff: building a traditional outdoor adobe-brick oven known as an horno. 

Through a series of community events starting May 30 through September 12, the museum is inviting volunteers to make adobe bricks, build the horno structure, plaster the horno, and fire it up to cook a celebratory meal of green chiles and tortillas. 

Hispanic and Pueblo communities in southern Colorado have used adobe hornos for centuries, and they remain a key cultural centerpiece for baking bread, roasting meat and corn chicos, and bringing communities together. 

This new community-built horno will keep a valued tradition alive on the museum grounds just outside of the Baca House, which was itself built from adobe bricks. In 1873, Felipe and Dolores Baca traded 22,000 pounds of wool for this unusual adobe house, originally constructed for Santa Fe Trail entrepreneur John Hough. 

Museum staff believe that the Baca family likely used an outdoor horno for some time because the oven inside the home kitchen was installed several years after the house was built. Rebuilding a replica of this adobe horno offers a wonderful opportunity for the community to restore this history and learn more about how to build, repair and maintain adobe structures like those already under History Colorado’s care across a statewide network of museums and historic sites.

“The horno project is more than an endeavor to honor the Baca family and the legacy of the past 150 years, it is also an act of listening to what this community has asked for on the museum grounds,” said Marggie Ferrendelli, the director of the Trinidad History Museum. “In building this horno, we are not only preserving history but participating in it together. Through this opportunity to collaboratively learn and work, we are building community within community, allowing our stories to be shared, remembered, and carried forward.” 

Beyond the mural and horno projects, the Trinidad History Museum is also continuing to build its gardens and raised garden beds where children and adults are invited to engage in classes around planting and growing food for the community to cook outdoors. The gardens include medicinal plants for making tea, plants to create colorful dyes, as well as Three Sisters and Victory gardens that draw on traditions of companion planting for growing essential vegetables and herbs. The Through the Vine lecture series uses these gardens to explore the history behind herbalism and crafting handmade herbal remedies. 

“By building the garden beds and horno next to each other, we are creating an environment where the community can gather together to celebrate the deep cultural and social meaning behind these traditional practices," said Kurt Traskos, the Trinidad History Museum facilities technician. “Beyond its practical use, the horno serves as a center of community life, where families and neighbors gather for shared baking days that strengthen social bonds.”

The Trinidad History Museum offers year-round exhibitions and programs, including Free Family Days each month and frequent workshops and events exploring the cultures and stories that make southern Colorado and the Trinidad region unique. Visitors discover rarely told and frequently forgotten stories – from the earliest encounters between the Spanish and Indigenous peoples, to the founding of new families and communities, and finally the transfer of territory and the shifting of borders that can still be seen on the land today. 

 

About the Trinidad History Museum
Trinidad History Museum, a Community Museum of History Colorado, occupies a city block in historic Trinidad, Colorado. The museum is made up of the Baca House, the Bloom Mansion, the Barglow Building, the Santa Fe Trail Museum, and beautiful community-supported gardens. 

The museum is located at 120 S. Chestnut Street, Trinidad, and is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm. Visit www.TrinidadHistoryMuseum.org or call 719-846-7217 for more information. Children 18 and under are free every day, as are History Colorado members. 

About History Colorado
History Colorado is a 146-year-old institution that offers access to our state’s history through enriching experiences at eleven museums and historic sites. As an agency of the State of Colorado and a non-profit organization, History Colorado is committed to serving all Coloradans through generational work that centers communities, deepens knowledge and catalyzes the transformative power of history.

History Colorado is also home to a free public research center, people-centered preservation work done by the State Historical Fund and the State Historic Preservation Office, the Office of the State Archaeologist, the State Historians Council, and many other community-driven public history projects such as the Museum of Memory. History Colorado stewards more than 15 million objects, photographs, and archival resources that make up the State’s collection, and serve tens of thousands of learners of all ages each year. History Colorado is one of only six Smithsonian Affiliates in Colorado. Visit HistoryColorado.org, or call 303-HISTORY, for more information. #HistoryColorado