Vol.:(0123456789) International Journal of Historical Archaeology https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-024-00733-x 1 3 Memorialization and Social Memory at the Ludlow Massacre Site Karin Larkin 1  · Skylar Bauer 2 Accepted: 19 January 2024 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024 Abstract Recent stabilization work at the Ludlow Massacre Site National Historic Land- mark revealed new insights into memorialization activities over time. The site com- memorates a battle between striking miners and the Colorado National Guard which culminated in the destruction of a striking miners ‘tent colony by fre causing the deaths of two women and eleven children in a cellar. The United Mine Workers of America erected a monument and preserved that cellar in cement sometime after 1918. Unexpected fnds encountered during preservation work on the cellar raise issues related to collective memory, memorialization, and scale. These fnds ofer new understandings of changes made at the site by the strikers and the UMWA since the massacre in 1914. Keywords Social Memory · Memorialization · Preservation · Ludlow Massacre · Coal Mining · Industrialization · Descendant Communities Introduction The Ludlow Tent Colony Site National Historic Landmark (NHL) is the site of the 1914 Ludlow Massacre that occurred near Trinidad, Colorado (Fig. 1). This event was the fashpoint of confict between coal miners in southern Colorado striking with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation (CF&I) and the Colorado National Guard. After seven tense months * Karin Larkin klarkin@uccs.edu Skylar Bauer Skylar_Bauer@nps.gov 1 Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, 1420 Austin Blufs Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA 2 National Park Service, Heritage Partnerships Program, 12795 West Alameda Pkwy, Lakewood, CO 80228, USA