Old Merchants and Farmers Bank

Wrapping the busy corner of Maple Street is this striking one-story brick commercial building, which is Lewisville’s best remaining example of the picturesque mode of commercial architecture associated with the turn of the twentieth century. The requisite surface richness and varied silhouette is provided by a tall parapet embellished with rows of brick corbeling and divided into bays by brick piers topped with concrete pyramidal caps. Two steep, narrow gables mark the building’s corner, completing the roofline’s jaunty effect. In contrast, at ground level all is business-like. The cutaway corner entrance, the large plate glass windows with transoms, and the paneled double-leaf doors are all standard components of small-town storefronts of this era. Originally designed for Lewisville’s only bank, the Merchants and Farmers, the structure later housed the First National Bank, and from 1919 to 1960, the King-Whatley law firm.