Walk on the north side of the street so you can see the buildings across the way. We’ll return on the other side. For a description and discussion of the five-story bank building, listen to the account of the Intersection of Main and Commercial in the Introduction.
The two-story building just east of the bank looks, because of similar sandstone and design, like an extension of the bank and, indeed, now is. In 1990-91, the bank broke through the common wall and did extensive interior remodeling to gain some badly needed breathing space. Until then, the building was known locally as the Plested Building, after the family that owned it for many years. It was originally known as the Post Hardware Company and then later, the Branson-Griswold Hardware Store. The first floor of the building is constructed of 3 inch by 14 inch beams on 12 inch centers with cross bracing, this to support carts that weighed many hundreds of pounds. Its façade is decorated with Romanesque arches above the second story windows with a delicate scroll above the arches. But the most intriguing and talked-about detail is the face of a woman just above the lower right column. The story is that the mason fell madly in love with a local madam of the “House is not a Home” variety and carved her portrait into stone. Surreptitiously, he slipped the stone into place as an everlasting tribute to her. From the expression, she must have been a rather dyspeptic lover.
Upstairs in this building was the Aultman Photography Studio, opened in 1889 by Oliver Aultman and in business until 2000, when son Glenn died at age 95. The studio recorded 100 years of street scenes in Trinidad, shots of coal camps long gone, and portraits of family groups (several in which one member of the family is dead --- usually the father killed in a mining accident --- and simply propped up). A portion of the huge collection is on display in the lower level of the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art just down the block. Be sure to see it.
Next door was another two-story building made of brick in 1880. Three Romanesque arches over the larger windows were echoed by decorative arches over the smaller ones. Multiple brick cornices topped by small urns decorated this rather simple, unaffected building. During its existence, the first floor consisted of a famous bakery with multiple owners over the years. On the second floor, the building housed a dance studio and a suite of offices among other businesses. This building had become unstable and was razed in 2016 in preparation for the construction of the present day Galleria.
At about this spot in the early days of the city, a deep ravine, which is confined within a culvert that lies beneath today’s Galleria, cut across Main Street. For a time, it was crossed only by a narrow footbridge. And thereby hangs a tale.
Some three blocks west on Main Street, in 1872, was the famous Exchange Saloon. One bright February day, a bunch of cowboys from Texas, including the three Wilson brothers, rode into town. Leaving their horses at a livery stable on the other side of the ravine, they sauntered across the bridge and through town, stopping off here and there at saloons and places of more intimate entertainment until one of the Wilson brothers ended up at the Exchange. A few drinks later, he decided he was being cheated at the gaming table (possible) and stormed out, swearing he would return.
While he was gone, the bartender sent for Sheriff Juan Tafoya, who stood quietly by as all the cowboys burst back in, guns at ready. The saloon offered to return Wilson’s money but the cowpoke said no, that someone was going to die. The sheriff stepped forward to grab Wilson’s gun as Wilson whirled and fired. Tafoya became the first Trinidad sheriff to die on the job.
The cowboys backed out and ran hell-for-leather for the livery stable with a shouting mob racing to catch them. After racing across the footbridge, one of the Wilsons whipped around and with leveled rifle, said the first pursuer on the bridge was a dead man. He held off the town while his buddies saddled horses and they all galloped away. (Later, they were dealt with by a posse.)
In the next year, 1873, the footbridge was washed away by a flood and soon replaced by a 60-foot-wide bridge so Main Street could be continuous. The Ravine, diverted and culverted, still runs under the town. It is visible near the corner of Commercial and 1st Street and again at Elm and Chestnut.
