BTW #11 -21 Back to the West Journey Tracks of the StoneBear
BTW #11 - 21 Back to the West Journey
Monday July 2, 2012 58*
Trinidad, Colorado 1 1st DRAFT pix coming and they are GOOD !
Trinidad Lake State Park #31
Cool, calm.... beautiful sunrise. Clean, thin air.... refreshing. Strong black coffee and oat gruel.
down to Trinidad at 11. Catch the trolley tour for an hour and gind out some more history of Trinidad. Trinidad, Colo... one of the great towns of the west is one of my most favorite places. Been here before and there's always more history and facts to learn; this is truely one of the west' best crossroads.
Little know places and things that don't register on the big events of the west but are neat to see. ie... the 1st Jewish temple/ synagog, Kit Carson park... Kit was here.
The College is a couple blocks away. Downtown there are many historical buildings .... historical built in the 1890s with "Trinidad" brick. "Trinidad" stamped on the brick. And the unique thing that sets Trinidad apart is... there was a colony of Italian immigrants here. Stone cutters in the quarries, stone masons, bricklayers.... stone craftsmen that had a unique hand in building... not just the unique architectural style.... but in the mortar. The mortar that these Italian masons mixed... made / engineered... was so unique --- that it has not cracked. NOT in a hundred years! Nobody knows what the recipie was that these Italian stone masons made.
The Colorado universities have analyzed samples... tried to re- create the mortar... with no luck. It is still a mystery what the actuall composition of the mortar was. ... Thus... NONE of the buildings by these Italian stone mason craftsmen has ANY setteling cracks. The historical buildings are intact... NO cracks in the mortar and brickwork. That , right there is enough to come see this place.
The College is a couple blocks away. Downtown there are many historical buildings .... historical built in the 1890s with "Trinidad" brick. "Trinidad" stamped on the brick. And the unique thing that sets Trinidad apart is... there was a colony of Italian immigrants here. Stone cutters in the quarries, stone masons, bricklayers.... stone craftsmen that had a unique hand in building... not just the unique architectural style.... but in the mortar. The mortar that these Italian masons mixed... made / engineered... was so unique --- that it has not cracked. NOT in a hundred years! Nobody knows what the recipie was that these Italian stone masons made.
The Colorado universities have analyzed samples... tried to re- create the mortar... with no luck. It is still a mystery what the actuall composition of the mortar was. ... Thus... NONE of the buildings by these Italian stone mason craftsmen has ANY setteling cracks. The historical buildings are intact... NO cracks in the mortar and brickwork. That , right there is enough to come see this place.
The streets are paved with "Trinidad" stamped bricks from 100 years ago. And thank you city officials and jistorical society members,... NO new bricks can be mixed with the old pristine -- Italian craftsmen-- bricks.
On several of the streets you can look north and see Fischers Peak... a really grand geological landmark that marked Trinidad as a crosroad of this part of the west.
Down through the old sections of town that were housing built from the impact of the C&S RR -- the Colorado and Southern RailRoad -- ... one of the anchor industries of Trinidad shipping coal. The old houses were C&S RR workers housing.... old distinct 1,800s architechture here on the Santa Fe Trail route.
