Allen National Bank and J. W. Allen General Merchandise and Grocery Company
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Commercial Building (Allen National Bank and J. W. Allen General Merchandise and Grocery Company)
1896, W. D. Whitlow and Brother, builder. 100–104 E. Main St.
While cattle kings L. A. Ward and Ike West eventually followed merchant-turned-banker George Brackenridge to San Antonio, Kentucky-born James W. Allen, who settled in Jackson County in the 1850s while a teenager, established himself in Texana in the mid-1870s as a dry goods merchant and grocer. Like the rest of Texana's business establishment, Allen moved to Edna in 1882, where he amplified his business by offering banking services. In 1896 Allen built this two-story brick building, the largest to survive in downtown Edna. The facade consists of what at first appear to be duplicate three-part bays, the narrow arched windows of the central bays flanked by single flat-headed windows, although the east half of the facade is slightly wider than the west half.
The one-story building at 105 E. Main Street possesses a Leffland-esque exterior countenance. The two-story, dark red brick Joe Volkmer Building (1898) at 123 E. Main retains its cast-iron storefront, as does the two-story building across the street from it at number 122, stamped with the imprint of the Union Iron Foundry Company of St. Louis. Facing the former Allen building at 101 E. Main is the former First National Bank Building (1950) by Corpus Christi architect Richard S. Colley. The building's second-story windows have been inappropriately altered, but the vertical corner pylon of split-faced ledgestone and the organization of second-floor windows in framed horizontal bands are themes echoed in Johnston's courthouse across the street ( BE35).
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