Markle Banking & Trust Company Building -- National Register of Historic Places Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor Travel Itinerary

[graphic] Markle Banking & Trust Company Building

[photo]
Markle Banking and Trust Company Building
Photograph by Sue Pridemore

The Markle Banking and Trust Company Building is a reinforced concrete eleven11-story detached commercial block building, faced with limestone and brick, and displaying Neoclassical Revival and Chicago style influences in its detailing. The building's large scale was designed to demonstrate the importance of banking and commercial activity. In 1910, at the time of the Markle Bank Building's construction, Hazleton was the established center of the Middle Anthracite Coal Field. Built at a cost of nearly half a million dollars, the Markle Bank Building was Hazleton's first high-rise office building and reflected the importance of the Markle family in anthracite region banking and the importance of Hazleton banking and financial activities in the development of the coal region. Anthracite is a high heat, low smoke, coal which differs from bituminous, or soft coal. The Markle Banking & Trust Company Building is of classic tall building tripartite form (base, shaft, and capital), with Neo-Classical Revival influences. Of reinforced concrete construction, the building is faced in limestone at the storefront level and in white brick at the upper levels. The original storefront had three bays, unified by four vertical pilasters that ran from the street level through the mezzanine, cut and beveled to resemble coursed stone. The Markle Bank operated until 1958, and in the same year the storefront was altered.

Markle Banking & Trust Company Building is located at 8 West Broad St., in Hazleton. The building has been rehabilitated and is open to the public.

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