The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route between Missouri and Santa Fe, in what was Mexico.
The so-called “Mountain Branch” of the trail traveled through what is now Trinidad and across Raton Pass. Getting over this rugged section of the pass (before it was converted into a toll road) was a major challenge for wagons, draft animals, and travelers alike.
The Santa Fe Trail was an important highway for more than just people and their goods. It facilitated the exchange of ideas, religions, traditions, and understandings. For generations it crossed the often blurry and overlapping lines between powerful states- the borderlands between the United States to the northeast, and in the southwest first the Spanish Empire and later independent Mexico.
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Postcard of The Spanish Peaks, Between La Junta and Trinidad, Colorado. History Colorado Jean B. Harper Colorado Postcard Collection 2007.63.5
This article was written by Colorado Welcome Center Trinidad and was posted on their Facebook page on March 26, 2026.