Online guide to the continental Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in the Raton basin, Colorado and New Mexico

Description of the Route from Denver to Raton

Trinidad

The site of Trinidad was an ancient Indian ceremonial ground. The area was later visited and periodically inhabited by Onate and other Spanish explorer colonizers, priests and soldiers; French and American trappers and traders; and Kearny and other subsequent U.S. military expeditions to New Mexico. The first permanent structure, a sheepherder's cabin on the south bank of the Purgatoire River (pronounced "per ga twar"), was erected in 1859, and the area soon attracted numerous farmers and traders. The early years of Trinidad were turbulent; conflicts between American and Mexican settlers and between the settlers and the Ute Indians were common in the 1860's.

Today the population of Trinidad is about 9,000. Coal mining, which began in the late 1800's, was the most important industry in the area until the 1950's when coal-burning steam locomotives were superceded by diesel locomotives. Coal continued to be produced at the New Eagle and Maxwell mines several miles west of Trinidad to fire the coke ovens in Pueblo until the late 1970's and later as fuel for electric power generation, but mining activity ceased in 1994.

In the Colorado part of the Raton Basin, more than 200 wells have been drilled in the past several years to develop the methane potential in coal beds of the Vermejo and Raton Formations. The center of activity is about 20 miles west and northwest of Trinidad. The main operators in 1999 were Evergreen Resources, GeoMet, Inc., and Chandler and Associates. Most wells initially flow less than 100 MCFGPD and a few hundred barrels of water per day, but with all of the producing wells in the area the gas stream in the Colorado Interstate Gas pipeline is about 70 MM cu. ft./ day. Gas is also being produced from the abandoned workings of some of the old coal mines in the area. Since the installation of a pipeline into the area in 1994, drilling activity has greatly increased and continues to increase with recent activity (1999) southwest of Trinidad and in the New Mexico portion of the basin.

Previous: Walsenburg to Trinidad

Back to Route from Denver to Raton