On this site stood the McPherson Town Company Building, built in 1873 at a cost of $1,250.00, which served as the little village's center of government and civic life as a courthouse, city hall, schoolhouse, church meeting place, and newspaper office. The building and all others in the block were destroyed by fire on March 1, 1883. A large hotel, first called the Union Hotel and later known as the McCourt, was then built here, and in 1887 the city hosted the Kansas State House of Representatives there in an effort to relocate the state capitol to McPherson. The hotel was demolished in 1984 to allow expansion of the McPherson Bank & Trust Co., the town's first bank, organized in 1878. The McPherson Bank & Trust Co. then created a plaza as an outdoor civic center for the people of McPherson, and today the City of McPherson accepts it as a gift from Bank of America and rededicates its use to all citizens of the McPherson community.