First National Bank Building, Bank building in Andalusia, US
The First National Bank Building is a six-story Beaux-Arts structure of reinforced concrete, two bays wide on the front and nine bays long. Its west and north sides, facing Courthouse Square, are clad in smoothed concrete block on the first story and tan brick above, while the east and south faces are red brick. Pairs of double-hung one-over-one windows mark the upper floors, rosettes separate the first-floor arched windows, and a large clock added in 1939 hangs from the corner.
The First National Bank of Andalusia was founded in 1901; by the late 1910s it commissioned this six-story Beaux-Arts building from Montgomery architect Frank Lockwood. In 1928 the bank merged with the Andalusia National Bank and took its name, then closed after a run in October 1932. The Commercial Bank, founded months later, bought the building in 1937 and refurbished the lobby and offices, converting the sixth floor from a civic meeting place into offices. It moved out in 1958.
The building's name changed with its owners: founded as First National Bank in 1901, it took the Andalusia National Bank name after the 1928 merger, then housed Commercial Bank from 1937. The sixth floor, once a civic meeting place, was converted to offices in 1937. A large clock added in 1939 hangs from the corner.
The building stands on Courthouse Square, across from the Covington County Courthouse that Frank Lockwood also designed. Its finished west and north faces, with tan brick above and smoothed concrete block at street level, front the square; the red-brick east and south sides are the plainer elevations. The ground floor, renovated into a restaurant in 1981, is the part a passerby can enter.
The large clock hanging from the building's corner was added in 1939, seven years after the bank failed in a run during the Great Depression. The ground floor became a restaurant in 1981, after the building had stood abandoned since 1972.
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