Old Colfax County Courthouse

The building's longest-lived tenant after the county left was not civic. The territorial reform school, proclaimed in 1909 and later renamed the New Mexico Industrial School for Boys, used these rooms from 1910 until it moved to its own campus northwest of town. That campus remained a juvenile school until the state closed it in 2005, and it has since served as a prison, holding women from 2016. The old courthouse now houses a Santa Fe Trail museum, and the panel stands outside it.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historical Marker Old Colfax County Courthouse Built in 1879 at a cost of $9,800, this building served as Colfax County Court- house from 1882 through 1897, when the county seat was moved to Raton. This building housed the New Mexico reform school for boys from 1910 to 1917 and has been a public library, town hall and city jail.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. James Hotel — 20 mi
  Henri Lambert's 1872 inn and saloon on the Santa Fe Trail at Cimarron, a stage for the Colfax County War, where the old saloon ceiling still shows 22 bullet holes.

More markers nearby

• Springer — 0.5 mi
• Clifton House Site — 20 mi
• Women of the Santa Fe Trail — 20 mi
• Black Jack's Hideout / Colfax County War — 21 mi