From The National Register of Historic Places 

 

“128 West 21st Street. Peoples Bank of Buena Vista. 1907. 103-5055-0001. CB. The Classical Revival two-story brick building with parapet shed roof has recently (2008) had a modern façade removed to reveal the original front. The front features blond brick on the first story, red brick in the second story, and a blond brick parapet with decorative lozenge panels outlined in red brick. The first story has three elliptical archways, each with cast stone voussoirs. Originally the left and right archways were large windows with the center archway containing recessed entries to the building’s various commercial and office spaces. The center arch has traces of the painted words “The Peoples Bank.” Behind the arches are a partly recessed and angled aluminum and glass wall (almost flush in the west archway) and a raised flagstone pavement.

At the northeast corner, facing the alley, is a baskethandle archway created in the 1960s. In the second story front are three tripartite windows with cast stone lintels with keystone motifs. There are traces above the first and second stories and at the top of the parapet of former pressed metal cornices. Other features include painted brick on the side and rear elevations, 1/1 sashes, a brick-veneered cinder block rear addition for a bank vault, and parging on the west side where the former Lehman Building once adjoined. The Peoples Bank of Buena Vista, Inc., was chartered in February 1906 and soon opened at a temporary location.

The bank purchased the site in early 1907. When its bank building was completed later in the year it also housed the post office, which had been deprived of its location in the Colonnade Building across the street when that building burned in March 1907. Advertisements in a 1909 newspaper noted that the building also housed the offices of dentist Dr. R. W. Williams and lawyers R. H. Willis and A. W. Robertson. After the post office moved out a millinery shop occupied the vacated space on the east side of the building. Later occupants were a doctor office and Mildred’s Beauty Shop (both on the second floor) and Central Fidelity Bank (after 1974). The façade was first altered before 1955. In the 1960s the building’s first story was given a modernistic arcaded treatment and a windowless tile façade was added above. The building flooded in the mid-1980s and has stood vacant since that time. It is currently (March 2009) in the process of rehabilitation as the Buena Vista branch of Community Bank. ”