Twenty-one miles from Raton, New Mexico, Trinidad, Colorado, sits smack-dab in the middle of the high mountain desert between Denver and Santa Fe -- 200 miles in either direction. As the southernmost stop on I-25, Trinidad is experienced by thousands of motorists every day as a blur of brick and stone, a charming blip on the way through Las Animas county on the way to somewhere else.
But up close, Trinidad comes into focus as a hybrid of worlds. Industrial and arty, historic and hilly, it feels a bit like an Italian artisan village set in the old West. The brick-lined streets are often uneven. Gorgeous old masonry buildings sit ornate and, often, empty in the historic downtown. Freshly painted murals share wall space with the ghostly outlines of signs for drugstores and furniture makers long gone. It's a strange place, both edgy and homespun, which is one of the reasons why a growing community of artists from Colorado and beyond now call it home.
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