First National Bank Photo courtesy of Uptown Shelby Association

This three-story building, first built in the 1890s, has long served as a hotel and the home of the First National Bank, the oldest financial institution in Cleveland County. H. Dekalb Lee was one of several initial directors of the Cleveland Savings Bank, incorporated by the General Assembly and established in Shelby in 1875. Lee, together with two of the other original directors of Cleveland Savings Bank, Burwell Blanton and S.J. Green, bought out the other directors' holdings and established a new banking partnership--H.D. Lee and Company--in the late 1870s. In 1895, Blanton and his sons Charles and George, purchased H.D. Lee and Company and changed the firm's name to B. Blanton & Company, until they obtained a federal charter and changed the name again to First National Bank in June of 1903.

First National Bank Photo courtesy of Uptown Shelby Association

The bank offices were located in the Warren Street corner of the building, then called the Blanton Building. The building also contained the finest of Shelby's four hotels--the Central Hotel--the lobby of which opened on the north end of the building, and the upper floors contain the hotel rooms. On February 23, 1928, the eve of the Depression, the hotel caught fire, killing three people and causing substantial damage. The bank temporarily relocated to a building on West Warren Street. At this location, on August 28, a cave-in caused by the excavation of an adjacent building tragically killed six more people. By 1929, the Blanton Building was repaired and remodeled with a simple corbeled cornice and stuccoed, and the hotel reopened as the Hotel Charles. First National Bank returned to the building, where it is still located today. The Blanton family has had a long relationship with First National Bank. Burwell Blanton's son, Charles C. Blanton, became president of the bank in the 1930s. When Charles was elected Chairman of the Board in 1947, his nephew, George H. Blanton Jr. became president at age 32 and later Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer in 1979. He was succeeded as president by Edgar Blanton Hamilton, the fourth generation to hold that position. Adelade Craver is the current Chief Executive Officer. First National Bank was the winner of Preservation North Carolina's J. Stanley Lowe Business Award in 2000--the highest statewide preservation award for businesses.

The First National Bank is located a 106 S. Lafayette St. in the Central Shelby Historic District. It is open from 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday-Thursday and 9:00am to 6:00pm Fridays.