Wild West Banking: One Local Bank’s Pioneering Legacy

If you are not sitting in History Class, you may appreciate a quick refresher on U.S. and Colorado History in 1901.

• Movie theaters did not exist.
• Vacuums had not been invented.
• In baseball you could cheer for the Cleveland Blues or the Boston Americans, and
• In August, Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Colorado Springs YMCA.

Less than 90 days later Theodore Roosevelt became President after President William McKinley was assassinated at the Pan-American Expo in New York.

Before The Fed Existed

And a few months later in November of 1901, the Comptroller of Currency issued charter #6030 to the organizers of the First National Bank of Las Animas in Colorado with $50,000. And our bank was approved twelve years before President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law.

Colorado Arkansas Valley

At that time Las Animas was home to 4,500 residents and a hub of activity in the valley with new brick buildings rising from the ground. Also rising from that soil was the now-famous Rocky Ford melons. Farmed for generations by our customers in the valley.

When our bank opened its doors in 1901, we joined three other banks in Las Animas. Of the original ones, only ours remains today. We serve generations of some of the same families who joined us when we chartered over one hundred twenty years ago.

We marvel at the hard work and determination it took our founders to serve customers through the Great Depression and both world wars! But it doesn’t end there. Our reliable, conservative approach provides solid footing when challenges arise today, just like the more recent ones of the Agricultural crisis of 1980-1990, 9/11, the Great Recession in 2007-2009, and a worldwide pandemic.

Serving Even More Colorado Communities

As the state grew, so did our desire to serve more Coloradans. In 1990 our bank acquired Otero Savings and a few years later opened our second location in La Junta. Not quite ten years later we embraced an opportunity “up north” to serve folks in the growing Tri-Lakes area.

At that Grand Opening we raffled off a Chrysler PT Cruiser. People in town still talk about that purple car that was all the rage in 2002.

We have been blessed in the last fifteen years to add locations in Fowler, Ordway, Rocky Ford, and in the Flying Horse area in Colorado Springs. While megabanks retreat from the marketplace and main street, we create places to serve our customers in the communities where they work and live.

Update For All Colorado Bank Locations

And in 2023 we updated our name to First National Bank Colorado to reflect the unity of all seven of our Colorado locations.

We love our amazing Centennial State and we enjoy getting to know our customers. We may see you at the school play, the 4-H meeting, serving at the food pantry or animal shelter, or under the Friday night lights.

Our customers are our friends, our teachers, our neighbors, the people who build our homes, cut our hair, and grow our food. We work hard to honor our history and show our customers that our relationship with them matters a great deal to us.

We’ve come a long way since 1901. Our founders never could have imagined the technology we offer customers today, but they would recognize the same hard-working, resourceful people of Colorado and our desire to serve them with optimism and honesty.

We are grateful for our history. And we look forward to the future.

First National Bank Colorado is a proud community bank and Member of the FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. FirstNationalColorado.com