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TRINIDAD, Colo. — There are more than 270 communities sprawled out around Colorado. But I bet none have left the sort of print on our state the way Trinidad has.

Trinidad is situated off I-25 in Southern Colorado, about a dozen miles north of New Mexico.

It’s a historic town with plenty of Victorian-style features. However, the one feature that sticks out more than any other just so happens to be Trinidad’s cobblestone brick roads.

“When people come here that’s the first thing they talk about – our brick streets – they love them,” said Joe Terry, a 70+ year resident of Trinidad.

Why the brick roads? Well, not only are they everywhere (thousands of them), but each brick has the town’s name ‘TRINIDAD’ written on them.

  • Downtown Trinidad
  • Trinidad is situated about 12 miles north of the New Mexico border
  • One of Trinidad's 'newer' bricks.
  • Part of a roadway in Trinidad
  • Trinidad's downtown stretch.
  • An old Trinidad brick.
  • Some of the bricks date back to the 1900s.
  • Overlooking downtown Trinidad.
  • Stepping over the cobblestone roads.
  • Downtown Trinidad in November.

According to the local history museum, this all came about in the early 1900s – and was partly created for public relations – but it also helped with the treading on tires during snowstorms.

“In some cases the old bricks hold up better, they were made with higher quality clay,” said Megan Petersen, Education Coordinator at the Trinidad History Museum.

As far as the museum knows, no other town in Colorado (or the country for that matter) has anything like it.

So the next time you’re in Trinidad, instead of looking around, make sure to look down.

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