First National Bank, Historic bank building in Downtown Huntsville, United States.
First National Bank is a temple-form Greek Revival bank building of 1835–1836, designed by George Steele, on the west side of Courthouse Square above the Big Spring. Its hexastyle portico of locally quarried limestone fronts a stuccoed brick main block 53 feet wide and 77 feet long, with Ionic columns and a plain entablature. A small cupola and weather vane from the demolished second Madison County Courthouse sit on the copper gable roof.
The building was constructed on the site where John Hunt established his cabin in 1805, which later became a commercial center. During the Civil War in 1862, Union forces repurposed the structure as a military commissary before it became the National Bank of Huntsville in 1865.
The bank's name is carved into the entablature above the Ionic columns, now reading Regions after the 1992 renaming. Inside, the mahogany tellers' desk is divided by columns and an entablature that copy the facade, and the director's room mantel repeats it with Ionic pilasters. The second floor held the cashier's living quarters, as the law required when the bank was built.
The building stands on the west side of Courthouse Square, on a bluff directly above Big Spring and Big Spring Park, so the square and the park are reached on foot from downtown. The main entrance opens into a vestibule flanked by two offices; the 1899 side doors lead straight into the front offices.
The small cupola and weather vane on the copper gable roof came from the second Madison County Courthouse, demolished in 1914. The two-story wing behind the southeast corner originally held slave quarters, with four rooms on each floor and four more in the basement.
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