Peoples Savings Bank

The Peoples Savings Bank is one of Louis Sullivan's famous 'jewel box' bank buildings, designed in 1911 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Sullivan, the father of modern American architecture and the man who first articulated the principle that 'form follows function', spent his later career designing small-town banks across the Midwest while the big commissions went to others.

The building's exterior is covered in Sullivan's characteristically organic ornamental terracotta work — intricate botanical patterns that he designed by hand and that no one has successfully imitated. It still operates as a bank. You can walk in during business hours and see the interior, which retains its original fittings.

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Louis Sullivan designed the building in 1911, near the end of his career, when he was broke and largely forgotten. He called these late small-town bank buildings his 'jewel boxes' — intricate ornamental facades applied to modest brick structures, trying to bring beauty to places that larger architects ignored. The Cedar Rapids bank is one of the finest examples, and Sullivan received only $1,500 for the commission.