Commercial Building (Union State Bank)

This bank has had a checkered past. Although the historical record is scant, the bank appears to have been an undercapitalized speculative enterprise by two Fargo bankers, an enterprise that failed soon after it opened and well before the economic collapse of the late 1920s. It reopened as the First National Investment Company building and leased space to the post office. From 1932, the building was a popular bar and pool hall. The two-story Romanesque Revival building is constructed of dark-colored hard-fired brick with sandstone trim, and there is a freestanding sandstone column at the corner entrance. Windows have been replaced rather unsympathetically, but the stained glass transom windows remain visible above the first-floor openings.