Entry No. 12 — the Pueblo file — filed under: haunted
Ludlow Massacre Memorial
“Vandals took the miner's head and the mother's arm; the union recarved them.”
On April 20, 1914, Colorado National Guardsmen and company gunmen machine-gunned and torched a tent colony of striking coal miners. Two women and eleven children suffocated in a dirt cellar under a burning tent. The UMWA bought the field, raised a granite miner and mother in 1918, and encased the death pit in concrete — steel door, steps down, and you can still peer in. Vandals took the miner’s head and the mother’s arm in 2003; the union recarved them. Wind, prairie, passing trains, almost nobody else.
The move: Read the names on the granite aloud to each other, look down into the death pit together, then drive into Trinidad for green chile and let the silence sit.
📍 Before you go Take I-25 Exit 27 (signed for Ludlow) and head west about half a mile on County Road 44; the monument and its gravel lot sit just off the road on open, exposed prairie. The site is free, open daily, and unstaffed — a covered picnic shelter and interpretive panels, but no restrooms or water, so stock up in Trinidad or Walsenburg. The concrete-lined death-pit cellar beside the monument was restored in the early 2020s; check whether the steel door is open before counting on descending the steps. The UMWA holds its annual memorial service here in June — the one weekend the site is not empty.
- 📍 Ludlow (15 mi NW of Trinidad)
- 💸 $$
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: I-25 Exit 27, then ~0.5 mi west on County Road 44, Ludlow, CO 81082
Hours: Added 2026-06-11 — confirm current hours before you go.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Proof: source 1 · source 2 · source 3 · source 4
last checked: 2026-06-11