Old National Bank
The Old National Bank was founded in 1891 and opened its signature building at Stevens St. and Riverside Ave. in 1911.
Section:Then & Now
Image One
Courtesy of the Northwest Room, Spokane Public Library
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Jesse Tinsley
| The Spokesman-Review
The Old National Bank was founded in 1891 and opened its signature building at Stevens St. and Riverside Ave. in 1911. It was a skyscraping marvel and thousands came just to see the bank’s soaring lobby lined with granite columns and to ride one of the five elevators, each with its own operator, up the fourteen floors. D.H. Burnham and Co. of Chicago designed the building, which cost $1.3 million, in the Chicago School style of architecture. It used a steel frame construction, which was the style in the wake of the 1889 Spokane fire. For decades, the building was marked by a brightly lit “ONB” on the roof. The bank weathered Spokane’s ups and downs and survived 1933 bank runs, as most did, by closing for a "bank holiday", then limiting withdrawals under the state Bank Stabilization Act. The bank merged with Peoples National Bank of Seattle to form US Bank of Washington in 1988, claiming $4 billion in assets and 140 branches around the state, including 428 W. Riverside in Spokane.