Walk down (north) on Maple Street, enjoying one of the best close-up vistas of downtown. The upcoming County Courthouse was designed by the same architect, Isaac Hamilton Rapp, who, as noted, accidentally originated the Santa Fe Style of architecture. It seems he had been contracted by Colorado Fuel and Iron to design a storehouse in their company town of Morley and was told “something sort of Southwestern” might be nice. He used a flat roof, stucco to simulate adobe, ornate Spanish trim around doors and windows, and the protruding vigas of Indian pueblos. Santa Fe fathers, who had been searching for a distinctive architecture for their city, spied it and exclaimed, “That’s it!” They contacted ‘Rapp to design some of their major buildings and the rest, as they say, is history. Although he was busy in Santa Fe for many years, he always maintained his house in Trinidad and retired here.
Many people, including Rapp himself, consider the Las Animas County Courthouse his masterpiece. The spacing, the balance, the architectural details are so harmonious, they create a stateliness without any pretension and make the large building that could be austere very approachable, even friendly. The interior is equally handsome and welcoming. Enter through the West entrance from Maple Street. Go down the hall to the left and around the corner. At the front entrance, turn to notice the ornate, gilded metal balustrade on the stairway. Circling above the entrance is Mario Benedetti’s mural depicting county history from conquistadors to coal miners. Outside, on the corner of First and Maple, is a replica of the Statue of Liberty paid for by the pennies of local troops of the Boy Scouts of America and other school children, and erected in 1950.
