TRINIDAD — For 127 years, the ornate Jewish temple perched on a hill overlooking the center of this town along the New Mexico border served as both a cultural draw and a reminder of the Southwest’s pioneer days.

The red brick and stone building, with its onion-twist dome and towering stained-glass windows, was a vibrant bastion for Jews looking to make their fortune along the Santa Fe Trail.

But now, Colorado’s longest continually operating synagogue in its original location — and among the oldest west of the Mississippi River — is closed. Temple Aaron has fallen victim to decades of economic change in Trinidad that led to a dwindling congregation, which no longer has the resources to sustain itself.

There were no Rosh Hashana services at the temple last weekend to celebrate the Jewish new year as there had been for the past century and beyond. Instead, those visiting the structure were greeted by a for sale sign. Even the synagogue’s sacred Torah scrolls are in the process of being sold.

“It’s terribly painful for me,” said Ron Rubin, whose family has managed the building and congregation for the past 30-odd years. “It’s just a horrible, horrible thing.”

The Rubins say there simply isn’t enough money left to pay the roughly $50,000 needed annually to sustain the historic Victorian-Moorish building and its membership. Mounting insurance costs and pricey repairs have forced them to shutter the synagogue and disband the congregation, whose members have included families from Denver, Albuquerque and Colorado Springs.

What makes Temple Aaron so special also makes it so expensive. For each perfectly stained window sending colorful light dancing off the hardwood floors, there is a section of roofing that needs to be replaced, a boiler that no longer works and chipping white paint that exposes the walls to the elements.

For decades, the Reform temple’s membership has been limited to a few dozen people — at most — including a handful from Trinidad itself. Members say the end of Temple Aaron’s existence effectively closes the doors on the history of Jews in the Southwest and their integral role in the story of the Santa Fe Trail.

“These places had large amounts of communities to have synagogue structures, to have cemeteries, to have B’nai B’rith chapters,” said Rabbi John Feldman, of Albuquerque, who led services at Temple Aaron over the past decade.

“But it hasn’t been like that in many, many decades,” Feldman said. “That’s, I think, another aspect of why the closing of these doors — why that loss — feels like one more chapter that has ended in a book where there aren’t too many more chapters.”

Trinidad, which has about 8,500 residents, developed as a dusty gateway to Raton Pass and New Mexico, eventually morphing into a coal town. Historians say Jews headed to the region in the late 19th century, setting up shops on Main Street in 1867 after a stagecoach line from Denver was established.

In the years that followed, more Jewish families came to the town, and by 1878 a B’nai B’rith Lodge — a historic organization for Jews — was formed and had 29 men as members.

“The first ones who came were mainly traders and peddlers,” said Perry Bach, a historian who has studied Jews in southern Colorado. “A lot of them also got into development — land development — the kinds of things they couldn’t do in Europe.”

Temple Aaron’s congregation was founded in 1883, and by 1889, after members raised more than $12,000 through bake sales and other efforts, the synagogue was built and a pipe organ arrived by wagon.

Jews flourished in Trinidad, with Samuel Jaffa, one of Temple Aaron’s organizing members, serving as the town’s first mayor. Others opened up shops that served the community, and the synagogue eventually came to serve some 75 families and had a full-time rabbi — Leopold Freudenthal.

Even the building’s direction seems to encompass the pioneer spirit. It faces west — toward where settlers sought prosperity — as opposed to east, toward Israel, as most synagogues do.

“You walk into the building and you can sense everyone worshiping God 100 years ago,” said Pedro Acosta, a recent member of Temple Aaron who lives a few homes away. He’s one of the only Jews left in Trinidad after moving to the town a few years back.

“You can even see their outfits,” he said. “You can hear their prayers.”

In the 1920s, as the nation slipped into the Depression, Jews began to leave Trinidad, and Temple Aaron’s membership dwindled. But the temple maintained its influence, serving well-known congregants such as Dr. Stanley Biber, the famous sex reassignment surgeon who arguably put Trinidad on the map. Congregants kept up services by recruiting gentiles for the choir and hosted esteemed rabbis from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.

There was an older man who played the temple’s rare Estey organ into his mid-90s, even if he occasionally pressed a sour note.

In 1946, Kathryn Rubin came to the town with her late husband, Leon, and became heavily involved in the synagogue. Around 1985, they took over leadership of the temple until several years ago when they moved to Colorado Springs, leaving their oldest son, Randy, at the helm.

Randy Rubin blows a shofar in Temple Aaron in Trinidad last week. Colo's oldest synagogue has closed. Story Friday. pic.twitter.com/sXfnAvqcIU — Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul) October 6, 2016

“I have become the gatekeeper, you might say. The keeper of the keys,” Randy Rubin said last week in the temple’s second-floor sanctuary while sitting in a 127-year-old wooden pew. “It’s an emotional, unfortunate situation for us. It’s a very difficult thing.”

The Rubins say they have sought every imaginable way to keep Temple Aaron open, including fundraising, grants and appeals to philanthropists, but they couldn’t keep up with expenses.

A University of Colorado professor’s talk at Temple Aaron on Sept. 24 marked the synagogue’s last public event.

“I keep thinking, and I pray every night,” said 93-year-old matriarch Kathryn Rubin, who has been a part of the congregation for 70 years. “Something is going to happen to that synagogue.”

While the building does have some facade restrictions because of its history, it could be significantly altered by new owners. It’s listed for $395,000.

“It could be repurposed,” said Randy Rubin, who lives in Raton, N.M., about 20 miles away. “It would be great to keep it as a sacred place, and that would be the highest use we feel. But once new owners assume the title, they are able to do what they will.”

For those who have attended Temple Aaron, they say the loss feels insurmountable.

“It’s unbelievable that there is no way this treasure can be saved,” said Jon Bell, of Albuquerque, who has been attending services at the temple for the past five years. His grandparents were married in the synagogue 100 years ago.

“The region has almost kind of an obligation to keep it going as a treasure,” Bell said.

Alys Romer, of La Veta, has been visiting Temple Aaron for roughly two decades after stumbling upon it by chance.

“It was a chance to have family,” she said. “I moved here from New Jersey and all my family is back east. I had family here that I could celebrate holidays with. … If you’re Jewish, you know what that sense of community is — that you have someone to spend time with.”

It’s unclear whether Temple Aaron’s congregants will find a place to meet in the future. Some members in New Mexico say they planned to meet in Albuquerque over the high holy days. Beyond that, however, the future — if there is one — is not certain.

After a visit to Temple Aaron last week, Randy Rubin ventured over to the Jewish cemetery on the other side of Trinidad and which sits on a ridge to the west that overlooks the town and the temple. He passed by the headstones of his father and Dr. Biber and dozens of other Jews who helped found the town and congregation.

When asked about what would happen to the burial grounds — which are marked by Temple Aaron’s name — Randy Rubin didn’t have an answer.

“You know,” he said peering over the football field-sized graveyard, “that’s a good question.”

Updated Oct. 10, 2016 at 10:32 a.m.: Because of a reporter’s error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the branch of Judaism that Temple Aaron falls under. It is a Reform congregation.