First National Bank of Lancaster - Courthouse Square Historic District - Lancaster, Wisconsin - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

Historic Name	Address	Date of Construction	Architectural Style
First National Bank of Lancaster	151 West Maple Street	1903-1904/1923	Neo-Classical Revival
This modest size, two-story-tall, rectilinear plan building occupies a prominent lot that forms the southwest corner of this block.I It was built in 1903-1904 to house the First National Bank of Lancaster. The building has walls clad in tan brick that are crowned by a bracketed overhanging cornice. The principal facade faces south onto West Maple Street and features a first story storefront with rental space in the second story above. The appearance of this building today, however, is somewhat different than as originally built. Historic photos show that the mam entrance to the bank was originally deeply inset into the southwest corner of the building's main facade and it was accessed through semi-circular-arched openings that were placed on either side of the corner. This device created what was in effect an inset open porch that sheltered the entrance and it also resulted in the appearance of a modest arcade. Placed to the right of this porch, which had just a single arched opening on either side, was a large paired window group that acted as a display window that provided light to the interior. This design remained in place until later in the second decade of the century. Eventually, the bank decided to update its entrance by having a new, classically derived, dressed stone storefront built that spanned the width of the main facade. This storefront is divided into four identical-width bays by five fluted Ionic pilasters and the new entrance to the bank is located in the second bay from the right and the entrance to the second story in the right-hand bay. Interestingly, this new storefront was the work of the Madison architectural firm of Claude & Starck, whose excellent Lancaster Municipal Building was constructed on the other side of the square between 1922 and 1923 and which was designed in the Prairie School style for which they are best known.