Plot on southwest corner of Maryville square

When looking at the small lot next to what is now Welch and Webb, it’s hard to believe that it was once home to a few different businesses. The main business of this building was a bank. As pictured below in black and white if you look on the right side all the way down the street, the building that says bank is where the empty lot is now at. The building was made up of three stories, each occupying different businesses. 

The main operation in the building was the First National Bank. Within the bank building there were a few different businesses operating. In an ad from 1939 a barber shop called the Todd-Kinder Barber Shop was promoted. In an earlier newspaper from 1894 there was a section that listed out several different organizations that utilized the first floor of the bank for weekly or biweekly meetings. The Sanborn maps line up with these ads, in 1886 the bank is listed as well as the barber shop in the basements and offices upstairs. The bank and the barber shop are also listed in 1891 and 1900. In 1909 the building was listed to be a bank and barber still as well as a lodge hall.

When looking at the space where the building once stood, there is not much to observe. The plot has been paved and now has a metal fence bordering it. How it got to this point is not very clear cut. When it comes to the closing of the bank, no exact date is easy to find, however there was a paper published in 1931 that presented talks of a new bank coming into town. This new bank was said to be taking over assets and deposits from the First National Bank so that it could ease in to closing down. We do know that the building was in use for a long time whether it had been used by the bank or another business it was functioning until 1975. On May 17^th, 1975 there was a fire that damaged a large portion of the south side of the square; however, it was not stated that the building was torn down then. 

Ad section, The Maryville Daily Forum, Aug 25, 1939, pg3.

“Courage Builds New Bank, Says a Times Writer,” The Maryville Daily Forum, Aug 19, 1931. 

“Fires seem to plague businesses,” The Maryville Daily Forum, Sep 17, 1977. 

Michael J. Steiner and Brent Trout, Images of America: Maryville (Lanham, MD: Arcadia Publishing, 2013).

Sanborn Map: Maryville, MO, https://dl.mospace.umsystem.edu/mu/islandora/object/mu%3A138882