Bank of Bisbee
Bisbee, Arizona

Description: Miners & Merchants Bank (1905) (7 Main Street)
Other Names: Arizona Bank; Bank of Douglas; First Interstate Bank of Arizona (1987)
Address: 1 Main Street , Bisbee, Cochise County, Arizona
Type: commercial: bank
Original Client: Bank of Bisbee
Historic Inventory:
Date: original bank 1901 (not by Trost):  addition by Trost: 1906
Condition: extant

Architect or Firm: Henry C. Trost (for addition and remodeling); designing architect (i.e. interior designer) W.H. Peeps of the J.P. Paulson Co., Denver (for addition and remodeling)
Associated Architect or Firm: Trost & Trost
Contractors: for remodeling: Otto P. Kroeger & Co., general contractor; for interior fittings: Designing Architect W.H. Peeps and General Agent J.H. Stahl of the J. P. Paulson Co., Denver
Dimensions and Orientation: two stories; faces south
Architectural Style: Neo Classical Revival Influence
Budget/Cost: for addition and remodeling: about $20,000; Original cost $8,000

Foundation: stone
Wall Materials: brick
Roofing Materials:
Other Materials Used: white marble entrance columns in Doric style, from a quarry near Fort Bowie, replacing earlier Ionic columns from an narrower entrance that Trost walled up and replaced
Remodeling and Additions: basic building: 1901-1902; addition by Trost: 1906; another addition, a second story passage to a building next door, was completed later (but not by Trost) In 1906, enlarged and received the two marble columns and grand entry. Special features are the copper doors and second store floor passage to the adjoining bank.

Present Owner: First Interstate Bank
Location of Drawings: none known to exist
Location of Documentary Photographs:

Bibliography: (1) Tom Vaughan, Bisbee 1880-1920: the Photographer’s View (Bisbee: Cochise Fine Arts, Inc. and Bisbee Council on the Arts & Humanities, Inc., 1980), front cover (facade of original bank shown in a photograph of July 4, 1892, and unnumbered page (photograph of interior after the addition and remodeling)
(2) Tom Vaughan, Bisbee’s Transition Years: 1899-1910, Cochise Quarterly, volume 14, number 4 (Winter, 1984), page 21
(3) Bisbee and Naco, Two Busy and Prosperous Towns, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, January 23, 1901, page [4]: The Bank of Bisbee is about to erect a two story bank building.
(4) Bisbee News, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, February 15, 1902, page [8]: The new bank building will be occupied next week.
(5) Copper Queen to Add to Big Store, Bisbee Daily Review, February 28,1906, page 6: ‘Plans are already completed for an addition to the Bank of Bisbee. The new building [sic; i. e. addition] is to be erected where the fire house now stands. It is planned to continue the bank to the alley between the fire house and the St. Elmo saloon. It is to be of brick and two stories high.
(6) Bisbee Daily Review, April 4, 1906, page 3: Ready To Begin TheBank of Bisbee and others interested state that they are ready to begin construction on the addition to be made to the bank building.
(7) Bisbee Daily Review, July 4, 1906, page 8, gives budget for remodeling and alteration, describes role of J.P. Paulson Co., of Denver, in interior fittings, reports on demolition of fire house on the site of the addition
(8) Bisbee Daily Review, July 10, 1906, page 5, reports on demolition of fire house on the site of the addition, describes remodeling and new entrance (The old entrance will be walled up and changed to the center of the new building.)
(9) Trost Plans New Bank, Bisbee Daily Review, July 11, 1906, page 3: Describes visit of H. C. Trost to Bisbee and the awarding of the contract for building the new bank [addition] for the Bank of Bisbee
(10) Lynn R. Bailey, Bisbee, Queen of the Copper Camps (Tucson: Westernlore Press, 1983, page 84 (1910 photograph of exterior of the Bank of Bisbee)
(11) Bisbee Daily Review, July 13, 1906, page 3, reports on the progress of demolishing the old fire house so that the foundation can be laid for the new addition to the Bank of Bisbee building.
(12) Worley’s Directory of El Paso, 1910 (Dallas: The John F. Worley Co., (1910), Otto P. Kroeger & Co. advertisement on unnumbered page, contractor named
(13) Arizona Good Roads Association Illustrated Road Maps and Tour Book (Prescott, Arizona: Arizona Good Roads Association, 1913; reprinted, Phoenix: Arizona Highways Magazine, 1987), pages 63 and 127, photographs of exterior

Remarks: The original building has a den tiled pediment supported by four Ionic columns. That facade has been replaced by den tiled entablature supported by two Corinthian columns. The two story brick Bisbee Drug Store Buidling to the west is now part of the bank. The saloon building on the 22 foot lot between the two buildings was removed and the original bank was expanded into that space sometime before 1930.

On February 3, 1956, the Miners & Merchants Bank merged with the First National Bank.

Prepared for the El Paso Public Library by Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1990.