Buying Land in Las Animas County, Colorado

A very large, very rural county -- confirm zoning through a small office

At roughly 4,700 square miles, Las Animas County is Colorado's largest county by land area, but its population is small -- about 14,400 people countywide, with Trinidad (around 8,100 residents) as the seat and largest city. The economy still runs on its agricultural heritage -- corn, wheat, and ranching -- alongside tourism drawn by the county's mountain and historic-town scenery. Land use planning is handled by the county's Land Use Office, which processes zoning, subdivision, and rezoning applications; given the office's size, an appointment is genuinely recommended before showing up with a permit application, and confirming a specific parcel's zoning district and any recorded plat conditions directly with that office is more reliable than assuming a standard countywide rule.

A real, recent solar buildout alongside a much older coal and gas legacy

Las Animas County's most significant recent land-use development is the Spanish Peaks Solar project -- 140 megawatts across two co-located sites, developed by JUWI Inc., acquired by Deriva Energy in a deal that closed in January 2024, and brought online for Tri-State Generation and Transmission's member cooperatives with commercial operations announced in January 2025. At peak construction the project supported roughly 250 jobs. Southern Colorado utilities and developers have continued to eye Las Animas and neighboring Otero County for further solar buildout as of 2024 reporting, so land near existing project footprints or transmission infrastructure may see continued development interest -- and potential lease or easement offers -- going forward.

That sits alongside two much older, still-relevant legacies. Coal mining defined the county from the 1870s through the 1920s, with mining camps and coke ovens scattered through the hills southwest and north of Trinidad, and the county was the site of the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, a defining event in American labor history. Where old underground coal workings exist, the Colorado Geological Survey has published specific homeowner guidance on subsidence risk -- sagging ground, sinkholes, or structural damage where old mine roofs and pillars can no longer support the surface -- because it remains a live concern as development continues near historic mine areas. Separately, the county's Raton Basin has been an active coalbed-methane gas field since the 1990s, with well counts and production rising sharply through the early 2000s; because Colorado law (following the U.S. Supreme Court's Amoco v. Southern Ute decision) treats coalbed methane as part of the oil-and-gas estate rather than the coal estate, mineral rights on a given parcel can be split in more than one direction. A mineral-rights and surface-use title review is a genuinely worthwhile step here, not a formality.