Because of two fires and a tornado in the nineteenth century, Louisville’s commercial buildings are twentieth century. At 111 W. Main adjacent to the 1964 classical courthouse (115 S. Court Avenue) by Thomas H. Johnston Jr. stands Chris Risher Jr.’s Bancorp-South (1975), a plain brick box with a glazed canted entrance and cantilevered canopy resting on a “Corinthian” column made of steel reinforcing rods. The interior is dominated by a diagonal beam carried on wood-bracketed cast-iron columns and decorated with incised acanthus-leaf motifs.
The former Citizens Bank and Trust (c. 1925; 228 W. Main Street) is a stucco-covered pastiche, with Corinthian capitals on twisted shafts supporting semi-circular arches, which frame tall windows. At 118 S. Church Avenue the former Strand Theater (c. 1930) has a facade composed of five tall, brick-arched bays, glass block on the first story, and a marquee with neon signage. The theater occupied the first two floors with a medical clinic on the third, which bears a swastika emblem, a symbol of well-being in various cultures, including that of the local Choctaw Indians.
The brick and limestone-trimmed post office (1935, Louis A. Simon, Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury) at 101 E. Main houses a PWA mural (1938) by Karl Wolfe, a native of Brook-haven who had a studio in Jackson. Titled Crossroads, it depicts workers hewing logs and removing cotton from a picking sack, a cotton gin, and arable fields beyond.