DENVER — Representatives of the Colorado Department of Corrections visited History Colorado on Monday morning to officially hand off a handcrafted saddle made by inmates at the Fremont Correctional Institute.
History Colorado has spent months traveling across the state to collect stories and items significant to Colorado history in honor of Colorado’s 150th anniversary of statehood.
“Our curatorial team is actively working to diversify our collection and better represent our communities on a statewide level, and so I first started here about three years ago, and I was thinking of who you know not represented in our collection in terms of my position, which is clothing and textile arts, and you know, I'd heard of programs like the Crochet Club in Trinidad or the Leather Workshop at the Fremont Correctional Facility, and I just wanted to know more about that,” Tara Kaufman, History Colorado Associate Curator of Clothing and Textile Arts said. “This whole project has been in the works for maybe a year and a half now, and it's finally the culmination, and they made this custom saddle for us.”
Kaufman said the 1800s-style saddle created by inmates who work in Fremont Correctional Facility’s Leather Workshop is a great addition to the collection.
“They primarily focus on horse tack and western wear, and that whole industry of horse tack, ranching, farming, all of that is very central to Colorado history as a state. And so it's important for the collection because it ties into that history, and you know the way they designed it kind of plays off of historic saddles, and so it ties both the past and the present,” Kaufman said.
Kaufman said the saddle will be on display for a year and in the collection permanently.
