320 Gallery | History
Three Twenty Gallery looks to redefine the future while remembering its past. During its 100-year history our 5500 square foot building underwent many changes, while the city of Las Animas itself evolved, both in culture and ideas. Built in 1903, on land originally inhabited by various Indian tribes (as early as 9,200 B.C.), our space was erected to provide electricity to a rising town. Decades leading up to construction, early settlers would find respite in the area, in search of gold and opportunity while American Indians were being forcibly removed, raped and slaughtered – specifically, the Utes from the mountains, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe on the plains from the Arkansas to the Platte rivers, the Kiowas and Comanches south of the Arkansas River, and the Pawnee and Sioux tribes along the Republican River. The ‘Indian Removal Act’, led by then President Andrew Jackson, against the orders of the Supreme Court, sent thousands of Indians westward, culminating into the Trail of Tears.