Now we come to the Cass Avenue Bank location that has been in the news, which was built in 1927, showing how quickly the institution had grown in twenty-one years. A severe, late Beaux-Arts building, it served as the headquarters of Cass Bank until 1974.

This was near the Carr Square and Old North neighborhoods, both extremely dense and home to tens of thousands of residents. I suspect the demolition of Carr Square and the interstate decimating Old North hurt the customer base of the bank. Today, the building is owned by Paul McKee, so nobody can buy if they wanted to, and it currently safe from demolition.

There was still the optimism to build this Modernist wing off the back. Yes, this was the bus terminal for some of its history. And those murals are by the renowned Cbabi Bayoc.

Besides the urban renewal dispersing customers, I also suspect the area was getting pretty rundown in the 1970s, so the move downtown was logical. I find it interesting that Cass Bank chose the Syndicate Trust Building, because that edifice would end up abandoned by the Twenty-First Century.

Today, Cass Commercial Bank is thriving out in Earth City, but still operates a branch just a block from the august former headquarters on North Thirteenth Street.