Across the street to the east is the five-story First National Bank building occupied in 1892. Before it was built, the pioneer store of Davis & Barraclough stood there. On the corner, in the 1870s and ‘80s, was the city’s first fire bell high on a pole with a long dangling rope. The theory of course, was that anyone with a fire would pull the rope to call out the volunteer fire fighters, and no doubt the rest of the citizens. According to Mr. Davis, however, persons giving the alarm often were so excited, they ran into the store shouting, “Fire, fire!” and he would have to drop everything to race out and swing from the rope himself.
The bank building is faced with locally quarried sandstone in a style that might be called Richardsonian Romanesque, meaning eclectic with a little bit of everything thrown in. However, Romanesque arches dominate the façade in an unusual and interesting arrangement, being repeated at different levels. The gable spanning the five small windows with their five small Romanesque arches on the fifth floor, making the building look somewhat like it belongs in Amsterdam, is a false gable. At the point where the largest arches on the fourth floor come together is a face carved in the stone that many locals will tell you is the portrait of the stonemason’s girlfriend. They are confused. That legend applies to a face almost hidden in the stonework of the Plested Building next door. The face on the bank’s façade is bearded and must be simply a gargoyle. Two more rather Gothic visages are almost hidden in the intricate stonework on either side of the bank entrance. The bank lobby is little changed with marble, brass, and gilding. Well worth a peek!
The second floor corner windows once proclaimed the Matador Land and Cattle Company. Yes, the famous Texas ranch was headquartered here for many years. This was due to the brilliant and dynamic Murdo MacKenzie whom some call the father of modern ranching in the West because he was (perhaps) the first to import blooded European stock to upgrade Western cattle herds. MacKenzie came to Trinidad from his native Scotland in the 1880s to manage a ranch that dwarfed the Matador, the Prairie Land and Cattle Company, which controlled vast lands in open range days, all the way from new Mexico to Canada. It was British owned, as were many of the large cattle empires in those days. After a falling out with the owners, MacKenzie spent some time in South America running a large cattle outfit and then returned to accept the managership of The Matador. The first thing he did was move headquarters from Fort Worth, Texas to Trinidad, Colorado, where he preferred to live. It was after all, before the days of air conditioning. Besides, he had a lovely country retreat in magnificent Stonewall Valley some 30 miles west of here.
Another large cattle empire was controlled from the First National Bank Building, this one from a desk off the lobby. Frank Bloom (he who built the Bloom Mansion, now part of the Colorado Historical Society’s museum complex two blocks east ) called the shots for the Bloom Land and Cattle Company that stretched from around Roswell, New Mexico up to the plains of Montana. Mr. Bloom’s desk was just off the bank lobby because for years he was also vice-president of the bank.
The historic structure to the east adjacent to the First National Bank building had, for years, showed evidence of its deteriorating condition and was recently replaced. The Galleria houses retail and office space and the design is in keeping with the character of the historic downtown.
