GOLDEN, Colo. — The Colorado Railroad Museum is telling a story that has largely gone untold: the history of Mexican and Mexican American laborers who accounted for two-thirds of railroad track work across the American West and Midwest between 1880 and 1930.
The museum’s exhibit, “Traqueros: Mexican Trackworkers and the American Railroad,” opened in October 2025 and is on display in the museum’s lower depot through August 2026. Through photographs, artifacts and personal narratives, the bilingual exhibit chronicles the contributions of Traqueros, the laborers who built and maintained America’s rail infrastructure during a pivotal era of national expansion.
“This is an important story that needs to be told, and one that hasn’t really been told before,” said Jasmine Robertson, curator of exhibits at the Colorado Railroad Museum.
Robertson said the exhibit reflects the museum’s broader mission of highlighting voices that have been overlooked in railroad history…