A museum dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of Salida and the surrounding Upper Arkansas River Valley.

Welcome to the Salida Museum
The City of Salida, Colorado, Heart of the Rockies, is in a prime location for many reasons and this is reflected in its varied and colorful history. The Salida Museum has a lovely collection of beautifully curated, local historical artifacts to help you explore the history of our area. The museum collection was first displayed in 1954 and has continued to grow and improve since then.

Explorers, miners, and ranchers were among the first to settle in the area, aided by an early agreement with the Ute Indians. Gold and Silver discoveries in the region in the 1870s caused the population to boom. More wagon trails were laid in to connect the mines with the Salida area for resupply as well as with markets on the Front Range.

Soon thereafter came the big push by railroads to reach the rich mining areas around Salida and to cross the rugged Rocky Mountains. Following a protracted fight on many levels to build track through the precipitous Royal Gorge east of Salida, the Denver and Rio Grande railroad arrived in Salida and the Upper Arkansas River valley in 1880.

1880 was a very busy year for our town! The railroad launched Salida into a period of rapid growth and was instrumental in helping it become a real community. First, many of the residents of tiny Cleora moved two miles west to resettle where the D&RG set up their work center along the Arkansas River. This new community was briefly named South Arkansas. Then, a few months later, the town was incorporated with the name of Salida. At this point it was called “The liveliest town in Colorado” by the Gunnison Review-Press.

Salida means exit in Spanish. Depending on your perspective, this is an exit from the canyon and the gateway to the mountains, or an exit from the mountains and the gateway to the eastern plains. In a perfect complement to the Salida Museum, downtown Salida is on the National Register of Historic Places and is Colorado’s largest historic district.

The Salida Museum is open Wednesday thru Sunday, 12pm - 4pm.