The Eastling Building

I've always known this building as the Eastling Building, named for the town's insurance agency, but when it first opened on 18 May 1896, this was the Citizen's National Bank. It's on the northeast corner of Second and Bridge Streets, directly across from the Central Hotel.

The sign painted in the front window very clearly reads "Citizen's National Bank of Manawa" (click on the photo to enlarge it a bit), although in at least two other photos I've seen it's identified as "First National Bank." I don't know the reason for this.

I remember being inside the front office once and seeing the vault, and I think even the teller cages were still in there for a while.

The town's newspaper, the Advocate, used to be in the first of two offices at the back of the building. Although you can't read it in this photo, you can just barely make out where the name "Advocate" is painted on the first large plate-glass window.

I used to work for the Advocate, taking and printing photos, hauling papers to the post office, and odd jobs. But when I worked there, it was in a building on Union Street, a block north of this building.

According to an account in the Advocate of the grand opening of the building, there was a barbershop in the other office. That's interesting because I remember a women's beauty parlor in those offices. I wish I could remember the name of it.

Here's a slightly different angle. Enough time has passed that they've removed the gingerbread screen door from the bank entrance. There's another shingle over the door, too.

Although it looks a little muddy in this shot, I can't tell if the street's paved or not. And although there are no wagons in this photo, the hitching posts are still there. I think this is before there were a lot of cars in town, if any.

The second-floor offices, where a dentist hung his shingle in these photos, were later divided into low-rent apartments; there were no businesses up there that I remember.