Main Street Corner - A Bank and a Grand Hotel

Photo: Sanfranman59, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)

A stop on Redwood City History Walk, a free self-guided tour.

Two landmarks face each other across Broadway here. On the northwest corner, at 2000 Broadway, stands the building completed in 1900 for the First National Bank of San Mateo County, a bank founded in 1891. It came through the 1906 earthquake and was later joined to the building beside it. The bank eventually merged into Wells Fargo in the 1970s.

On the southwest corner is the Sequoia Hotel, built in 1912 on the site of the Eureka Brewery, which burned in 1902. With its decorated rooms, it was praised in 1916 as the finest hotel then operating between San Francisco and San Jose, a sign of how far the little lumber town had come.

Together with the old store you just saw and the theater just ahead, these buildings make up the historic commercial district on the National Register. Look up above the ground floors to see the original cornices and window patterns.

Getting here: Walk back south on Main Street to the Broadway corner; the bank building is on the northwest corner and the Sequoia Hotel is at 800 Main.

Did you know?: Like many national banks of its day, the First National Bank of San Mateo County printed its own National Bank Notes, paper money carrying its name.

Photo op: From the southeast corner of Main and Broadway, frame the bank and the hotel facing each other across the intersection.

More on Wikipedia: Redwood City Historic Commercial Buildings · 1906 San Francisco earthquake

Main Street Corner - A Bank and a Grand Hotel

Stops on this tour