The National Farmers' Bank of

Owatonna, Minnesota Owatonna () is a city in Steele County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 25,599 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Steele County. Owatonna is home to the Steele County Fairgrounds, which hosts the Steele County Free Fair i ...

, United States, is a historic bank building designed by

Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...

, with decorative elements by

George Elmslie George Grant Elmslie (February 20, 1869 – April 23, 1952) was a Scottish-born American Prairie School architect whose work is mostly found in the Midwestern United States. He worked with Louis Sullivan and later with William Gray Purcell as ...

. It was built in 1908, and was the first of Sullivan's "jewel box" bank designs. The building is clad in red brick with green

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

bands, and features two large arches on its street-facing facades. Single-story wings, originally housing bank offices, extend along each side. Internal elements include two

stained-glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

windows designed by Louis J. Millet, a

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

Oskar Gross Oskar Gross (1871 - 1963) was an artist in Germany and the United States. Born in Vienna, he worked in Munich before moving to the United States. His work included decorative murals in buildings for Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan and George C. Nimm ...

, and four immense cast iron electroliers designed by Elmslie and cast by Winslow Brothers Company. and The officers of the National Farmers' Bank sought Sullivan out, in part because they wanted a fresh idea of a bank building that would suit their specific needs, and they felt that conventional bank architecture of the time would not meet those. The building Sullivan designed included a farmers' exchange room, where its clients might do business with each other, a women's consultation room, a conference room for the bank board, and the president's office. All of these rooms were richly decorated, with custom furniture. The bank was remodeled in 1940, and many of the interior architectural elements were destroyed. Subsequent work in 1958 and from 1976 to 1981 restored it to its original grandeur. On January 7, 1976, it was recognized as a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

for its architectural significance. The building now houses a branch of the

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...

bank. It is also a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

to the

Owatonna Commercial Historic District The Owatonna Commercial Historic District is a designation applied to the historic downtown of Owatonna, Minnesota, United States. It comprises 75 contributing properties mostly built between 1871 and the late 1950s. It was listed as a histo ...

Images

Image:WestFaceDetail.jpg, West elevation detail Image:LSOwatannaBank1.jpg, Cartouche Image:LSOwatannaBank3.jpg, Cartouche detail Image:LSOwatannaBank2.jpg, Exterior terra cotta File:Electrolier-National FarmersBank-Owatonna-1910.jpg, Electrolier

References

External links

"Why a Minnesota bank building ranks among the nation’s most significant architecture"
''

PBS NewsHour ''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virg ...

'', June 15, 2022.
Minnesota Public Radio: Louis Sullivan's Owatonna BankNHL summary
{{DEFAULTSORT:National Farmers Bank Of Owatonna 1908 establishments in Minnesota Art Nouveau architecture in Minnesota Art Nouveau commercial buildings Bank buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Buildings and structures in Steele County, Minnesota Commercial buildings completed in 1908 Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Minnesota Louis Sullivan buildings National Historic Landmarks in Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Steele County, Minnesota Wells Fargo buildings

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See also

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Further reading

External links