(Written by Geoffrey C. Howes, Bowling Green Historic Preservation Commission)
On Feb. 23, 1926, the Commercial Bank and Savings Company opened its impressive new building at 130 S. Main St. in downtown Bowling Green. Under a front-page banner headline, the Wood County Democrat enthused that the bank’s new home was “one of the most handsome buildings in Ohio, and many have been kind enough to say that it is the finest banking room in the state.”
After the all-day opening celebration, the Democrat reported that thousands had attended the event. “The visitors were met at the main entrance, where the ladies were presented carnations and the men folks with good cigars. Two thousand balloons were also distributed to children who visited the building.”
The Commercial Bank had been founded in 1885 by Albert E. Royce, Wallace H. Smith, and J. J. Coon, and became Commercial Bank & Savings in 1905. It was the second bank in Bowling Green, after the Exchange Bank (established in 1871), and by 1926 it was the oldest remaining bank in the city.
The bank was first located at 121 S. Main St. (now City Egg). In 1889, its president, A. E. Royce, built the Royce Block at 136 S. Main St. (now Ace Hardware), and early in the 20th century the bank moved into its north wing. This wing was demolished to make room for the big, new building, eliminating the original symmetry of Royce’s Italianate structure.
In 1924, the bank contracted with the local builder Leo Herman to erect the new building at a cost of $150,000 (about $2,750,000 in 2024). Herman also built the Men’s Gymnasium at BGSU (now Eppler South), as well as several churches around Ohio.
According to a directory printed in the Wood County Democrat, the second and third floors of the new building housed three law offices, two medical practices, two dental offices, a realtor, the Inter-County Credit Association, and the Princess Beauty Shop, which offered “Marcelling and Permanent Waving.”
In 1980, when the Main Street Historic District was placed in the National Register of Historic Places, 130 S. Main St. was listed as one of the structures that contribute to the district’s historic significance. Regional Preservation Officer Ted Ligibel described the three-story building as “a Neo-Classic style structure based on Greek Temple designs,” built of gray Indiana limestone. Palmette acroteria (palm-leaf-shaped decorations) adorn the peak and corners of the pediment (gable) at the top of the façade. The third story is set off by a wide frieze with geometric fret patterns. Four round columns with Doric capitals rise from the ground level to support the stone lintel over the second story, with the bank’s name carved into it. Three delicate floral reliefs between the first and second floors reflect the Adamesque style of Neo-Classical decoration, which dates to the 18th century.
Today, as in 1980, the building’s exterior is virtually unaltered from its appearance in 1926, although there is no longer a clock above the central entranceway. This nearly century-old landmark is featured on one of the Historic Preservation Commission’s recently installed historical interpretive signs, “Commerce and Finance in Old Bowling Green,” located directly across the street from the old bank, in the middle of the block on the east side of South Main.
On Nov. 30, 1929, just a month after the great stock-market crash known as Black Tuesday, the Ohio State Supervisor of Banks, O. C. Gray, closed Commercial Bank & Savings. The Wood County Republican reported: “The bank is said to have undergone a steady drain of deposits for the past several months, but conditions seemed to keep the bank from closing, until several large withdrawals on Saturday morning. The state bank examiners had been in the bank since the Wednesday before, making their regular visit to inspect the books. Friday, the examiners became alarmed at its condition, and summoned Gray to look-over the matter. After his arrival Saturday morning, he foresaw the ultimate outcome, and placed the bank under state supervision at nine o’clock.” Commercial Bank & Savings never opened its doors again.
In November 1931, the building re-opened as the Bank of Wood County, a name it kept until 1975, when it merged with and took on the name of the Huntington Bank. A modern entrance and courtyard had been added to the north side of the building in 1973, echoing the gray limestone of the original, but in the Brutalist style.
In 2008, Huntington Bank acquired the local Sky Financial Group (which itself had merged with Mid Am Bank in 1998) and moved its Bowling Green headquarters out of 130 S. Main St. into the more-modern, Neo-Colonial former Sky headquarters at 222 S. Main St. This ended the era, for Bowling Green at least, in which an imposing stone edifice symbolized the solidity of the financial institution it housed, a link that had already been sorely tested in late 1929.
Huntington retained the building and continued to rent the offices on the second and third floor to tenants offering services such as psychological therapy, public accounting, urban planning, and massage therapy. In 2016, the first-floor lobby and offices became the Four Corners Center, bringing the Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitors Bureau, Downtown BG, and Economic Development together for the first time. The massive vault still stood at the rear of the lobby, a reminder of the building’s original purpose.
When Huntington put 130 S. Main St. up for sale in 2019, the City of Bowling Green purchased it, along with properties to the rear: two parking areas, the empty Huntington drive-through branch, and what was then Bowling Green Mirror and Glass. The plan was to resell the bank building, the glass shop, and adjacent parking, but to keep the old bank branch, as a space for restrooms to serve Wooster Green, and the lot next to it for municipal parking and possible expansion of the police station.
In November 2020, Maurer Rentals LLC bought the old bank building from the city with the understanding that the Four Corners organizations could continue to lease the first-floor space, but early in 2021 those civic groups moved to office space in the “new” Huntington building at 221 S. Church St. In September 2023, Maurer Rentals asked the remaining tenants to vacate the building by the end of November.
Since then, this Bowling Green landmark has stood empty, but David Maurer reports that his company desires “to place a firm in the building that will complement our community and strengthen downtown Bowling Green.” They have been in talks with various prospective lessees and are currently working with one prospective company that, although they cannot identify it at this time, would be a valuable addition to downtown Bowling Green.
