Monday, March 2, 2020 Page 3The Chronicle-News Trinidad, Colorado

Trinidad HisTory

Time Capsule

City’s East Main building has long business historyCosette Henritze The Chronicle-News

While the large historic struc-tures in Trinidad like banks and hotels get most of the attention from researchers and preserva-tionists there is a lot of history to be told about the city’s lively busi-ness past from its smaller build-ings around town. Perhaps those plain rectangular stores with sparse decorative trim sitting like shoeboxes on the sidewalks amid the showy Victorians should have their own pages in the history books.

A good example can be seen on East Main St. right next door to the A.R. Mitchell Museum, where Theresa’s Antiques is now in business. The store actually oc-cupies space that was once divid-ed into two small storefronts and the popular antique shop fills the combined footage well with a won-derful selection of collectibles for sale. Next door to the east is Dixon Waller, Inc., the last building on

the block ending at the corner of Main and Maple Streets.

The history of this section of E. Main Street goes back beyond the official existence of the town of Trinidad since it was first a fron-tier trail – the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. Some of the first adobe buildings that were built as the town was settled in the early 1860s were likely built near that very spot.

Looking at the development of the downtown business district along Main Street during the past 125 years the spot at the corner of E. Main and Maple shows that an amazing number and variety of businesses have occupied the building where Theresa’s An-tiques does business today. They included everything from a bi-cycle repair shop, a luncheonette, ladies millinery, several different groceries and a barbershop.

One of the earliest references to major construction on the site was in the summer of 1891 in a brief article in the Trinidad Daily

News: “The firm of Hubbard, Rhodes

& Freeman, carpenters and build-ers, have been awarded a con-struction contract to build a size-able new 3-story building on E. Main St. at the corner of E. Main and Maple. Currently, George Pople is doing the demolition work on the old adobe house that is there. The walls of the house are said to be so thick that they can re-main in place and will easily sup-port the planned 3-story structure planned.”

By the early 1900s the Sanborn Insurance maps show the 3-story Colorado Building that would shortly become home to Jamie-son’s Department Store occupying the space that today is 150 E. Main St. (the A.R. Mitchell Museum). Next door there were single story storefronts. In 1908 William M. Ar-nott operated a bicycle repair shop in one and there was a tea and cof-fee shop and café next door.

During the next decade the city of Trinidad would be respon-

sible for making stores smaller in size when they took a slice of land off the property at the end of the block. In 1917 City Council decided to widen Maple St. in or-der to provide better access and a “grander entrance” to the recent-ly completed Las Animas County Courthouse. They contacted the owner of the property – Joseph S. Davis, in California – and negoti-ated purchase of a 30-foot strip of property for $13,550.00, and Davis agreed to “complete demolition of the buildings.” He actually only tore down the eastern exterior walls, certain sections inside and then reconfigured the buildings and re-roofed.

In the 1920s there were two gro-cery stores in the block, operating side by side – Gerardi’s at the cor-ner and Piggly Wiggly next door. During the coming decades as many independent groceries went out of business due to competition from chain stores there was a dif-ferent kind of food business rent-ing and operating in the location.

Several coffee shops and cafes had successful runs there, including the Oriental Café.

There would be times in the coming years when business slowed down in town and the storefronts stood vacant. The for-tunes of many small independent shop owners depended on the ups and downs of a local economy that revolved around one or two main industries. When coal miners or railroaders got laid off or the brewery cut back and the foundry and brickyard slowed produc-tion, little businesses downtown couldn’t survive.

In recent years, however, there has been revitalization in the heart of Trinidad and everyone enjoys seeing the smaller shops opening their doors to new and ‘tried and true’ business ventures.

Visit Theresa’s shop on E. Main St. next door to the Mitchell Mu-seum where you’ll find a selection of antiques and special souvenirs from the past in a building that is perfectly suited to house them.

Archive / The Chronicle-News

R.L. Wootton (1816-1893) was known to enjoy telling tales and perhaps he passed on the habit to his oldest son and namesake, R.L. Wootton Jr. There have been many businesses located in the buildings on E. Main Street pictured at page top. The smaller inset photo dates from the early 1920s and shows the Piggly Wiggly grocery and another shop next door (both beside the Colorado Building, the large 3-story structure occupied by Jamieson’s Dept. Store until the 1970s). Today the two smaller storefronts have been combined into one of Trinidad’s most popular antique stores.

Among the businesses at

160 E. Main St. 1900-present

■ Wholesale liquor store

■ Ladies millinery

■ Confectionery shop

■ Wallpaper & cabinet sales

■ Bicycle repair shop

■ Cigar store

■ Public library

■ Grocery store

■ Tea & coffee shop

■ Art & Music supplies

■ Chamber of Commerce

■ Trinidad Floral Co.

■ Office & Stationery

■ Dern-Kent Coffee Co.

■ Clarke Sewing Supplies

■ Bauer Jewelry Store

■ Auto supply store

■ Ladies beauty parlor

■ Trinidad Typewriter

■ The Oriental Café

■ St. Michael’s Gift Shop

■ Music shop

■ Barber shop

■ Theresa’s Antiques

Do your part to help keep Colorado bears wild ... Continued from Page 1

open dumpsters or trash cans provide an all-you-can-eat buffet when left unsecured. Bears are highly intelligent and resourceful animals. Bears that find food around your home or in your community often lose their natural wariness of people. Once they find garbage, the next place they may look to for more food is inside your home.

Other municipalities in the process of developing trash ordinances for bear proof-ing include Idaho Springs, Gunnison and Lyons. If you must leave trash outside, buy a bear-proof container/dumpster, build a bear-proof enclosure or install an electric fence. To avoid attracting bears, clean containers regularly with ammonia or bleach.

■ BIRDFEEDERS: 397 A seven-pound bag of bird seed equates to

12,180 calories for a bear. A 50-pound bag of bird seed has over 87,000 calories — a reward well worth the effort of breaking into your garage to get.

Bears want to get the most energy they can with the least amount of effort. Any type of bird feeder (hummingbird, suet and seed) you have out on your property, including those on upper levels, is about as easy of a meal that a bear can get.

Birdfeeders should not be placed outside from March through the end of November for any reason. Letting your bird feeders turn into bear feeders teaches bears that it’s safe to come close to people and homes look-ing for food. And for bears that can become a deadly lesson.

Other ways to attract birds to your prop-erty include placing a nesting box out, cre-ating a bird garden, hanging flower pots or

having a bird bath. Add brightly colored, trumpet shaped flowers around your home to attract hummingbirds, butterflies and a variety of beneficial insects.

Water, especially running water, actually does a better job of attracting a wider variety of birds year-round than a bird feeder. Just keep your water sources smaller. Bears don’t sweat, so larger ponds and uncovered hot tubs can actually attract bears looking for a place to cool off.

Be responsible about attracting birds and you’ll be doing your part to keep bears wild.

■ OTHER FOOD SOURCES: 1,171 Black bears are omnivores and will eat

just about anything. Other major food sourc-es we find around homes that attract bears include fruit trees, bee hives, chicken coops and livestock. While fruit may be a part of a bears natural diet, that does not mean a bear should be gorging itself on your apple tree mere feet from where your kids play outside.

Additional food sources include pet food, BBQ grills, compost, livestock feed and fridg-es/freezers in your outer buildings. These items must always be cleaned up and/or properly secured.

■ DWELLING BREAK-INS: 517 This number, which includes houses,

cabins and garages, is certainly conservative as it does not include the many incidences where a bear was reported in a garage after the owner left it open, nor sheds that bears got into to get food. It only accounted for bears in homes, cabins or garages where there was forcible entry.

These numbers should highlight the el-

ementary principles of locking the doors to your home, keeping your garage door closed and your windows closed and locked. Build bear unwelcome mats as a deterrent to place in areas a bear may want to access, replace exterior lever-style door handles with good quality round door knobs that bears can’t pull or push open, install sturdy gates or bars on lower level windows to help keep bears out. Screens don’t keep bears out.

■ VEHICLE BREAK-INS: 303 That equals 303 preventable occurrences

if people had only kept anything with a scent out of their cars. Imagine the damage a bear would do inside your car, and the unwanted “present” it could leave behind. Keep car doors and windows closed and locked if you park outside. Make sure there’s nothing with an odor in your vehicle, including candy, gum, air fresheners, trash, sunscreen, lo-tions and lip balms.

Please see our Bearproofing Your Home webpage for more helpful tips. Loca-tions suitable for bear habitat in Colorado can be anywhere west of I-25, but bears are also found each year on the eastern side of I-25.

There were over 150 reports of bears on the eastern side of I-25 in 2019. Bears were reported as far east as Morgan County in the northeast, the town of Pritchett in the south-east, near Las Animas and Limon.

Once your property has been visited by a bear and it has been rewarded with a human-provided food source, that homeowner is le-gally obligated to remove that attractant. If they do not, they could be issued a citation for

feeding or attracting wildlife, a misdemean-or charge. If you do not have a food source at your property, you will not experience issues with bears. If you do not have a food source at your property, but your neighbor does, then it is possible to have a bear come too close for comfort. It takes a community-wide effort to reduce human-bear conflicts.

Colorado Parks and WildlifeA bear looks inside an Estes Park home after breaking through a screen door.