The Riordan Mansion

While I was in Flagstaff back in October, I took time to visit The Riordan Mansion State Historic Park, another place I had never visited before.  The mansion above is one big house, the top photo showing the left side and the second photo showing the right side.  It was built in 1904 for two Riordan families.  The Riordan family played a central role in the growing Flagstaff community as business leaders and the largest employer in Flagstaff.  They started a successful logging business, the Arizona Lumber and Timber Company.

The Riordan brothers, Timothy and Michael married the Metz sisters, Caroline and Elizabeth and the brothers built this house so both families could live close to each other.  The two residences were separated by one big room called the billiard room.  The two photos above show the separate entrances for each side of the big house.

The billiard room served as a central part of the house where the two families could get together and play games and enjoy each other's company.

The Riordan's had the tree painting commissioned and located in the central billiards room.  It's supposed to represent the first tree they cut for the business.

However, each side was totally separate so that day to day family activities were private when they wanted.  Above is the dining room on one side of the house.

This is the living room on the other side of the house.  Don't you love that hanging porch swing in front of the fireplace?

One thing I found interesting was this display of Timothy Riordan's passport.  I had never seen a passport that was issued on a folded sheet of paper before. I loved the descriptions to the left of the photo.  It has things like:

• Mouth, Large
• Chin, Full
• Hair, White

And so on with other distinguishing marks.

I'm glad they don't do that today.