Signatories on Banco Yucateco notes
The (identifiable) signatures are Casiano Castellanos and Manuel Pinelo M. as Director, and M. Sánchez T. as Interventor and Mateus Ponce and Filberto J. Mendez as Cajero.
Director
Manuel Pinelo Montero, a prominent businessman In Mérida, was the bank's first director. He died in Mérida on 20 February 1902. |
![]() |
Casiano Castellanos Molina was born in Mérida in 1845. He died in Mérida on 19 December 1904. |
![]() |
Interventor
Pedro Rivas Peón | ![]() |
M. Sánchez Tirado | ![]() |
Cajero
Mateus Ponce In January 1908 when Antonio Cáceres replaced Mateus Ponce it was discovered that Ponce had defrauded the bank of $740,000, from a strongbox that contained notes from Mexico City that had not yet been put into circulationEl Tiempo, México, 9 January 1908. Ponce had involved the Interventor, who had been silenced with a large loan. Ponce, the Interventor and various officials were arrested. Much of the money was recovered though Ponce has spent some on a lavish lifestyle, including a collection of rare exotic birdsEl Tiempo, 2 February 1908. $200,000 was recovered on 9 JanuaryEl Imparcial, Tomo XXIV, Núm. 4119, 10 January 1908 and $16,800 returned on 28 JanuaryEl Tiempo, 28 January 1908. Ponce’s defence was that he had been a honest and devoted employee but suffered from a family mental illness that caused him delusions of grandeurEl Imparcial, 23 January 1908: El Tiempo, 28 January 1908. He was convicted and sentenced to [ ] years. In [ ] he appealed to the Constitutional governor for release. |
![]() |
Filberto J. Méndez | ![]() |
Juan A. | ![]() |
Other personages
At the end of 1907 Molina deployed all his forces to destroy the group headed by the Escalentes and gain total control of henequén production and the Ferrocarriles Unidos driving the Escalente companies into bankruptcy and accusing them of fraud. Molina was a federal deputy from 1869 to 1871 and 1873 to 1875, senator from Oaxaca from 1900 and 1902, and governor of Yucatán for two terms, from 1 February 1902 to 6 March 1907. As governor he is remembered for the number of schools he built, the paving and draining of Mérida's streets, and a spate of capital improvement projects in Mérida (O. Molina y Compañía received lucrative contracts for many of these capital projects.) He also reorganized the property registry, rewrote the state constitution, reformed the penal and civil codes, and reorganized the state National Guard and Mérida police force. In 1906 President Porfirio Díaz visited Mérida, and after marveling at all of the impressive physical changes, rewarded Molina by making him, in Match 1907, his Secretario de Fomento, Colonización e Industria. He fled to Havana in 1911 and died in exile on 28 April 1925. |