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| Salyersville Bank Building – Salyersville, Ky. |
One building in downtown Salyersville stands out: the Salyersville Bank at the corner of Church (KY 7) and Maple (US 460). An impressive two-story limestone structure in the Beaux Arts style constructed by Italian craftsmen who arrived in eastern Kentucky during a coal boom in the early twentieth century. Built in 1912, the Salyersville Bank anchored Salyersville’s growth.
A short-lived oil boom beginning in 1918 marked the county’s oil fields as producing the third highest volume in the state by 1922. The bank was instrumental in securing the funds the enterprise required. A 1927 flood caused great damage to Salyersville’s commercial district, but the bank remained open and able to help local merchants get back on their feet.
When the Great Depression hit, the Salyersville Bank continued to operate in part to its sound financial practices. The dirt roads of downtown Salyersville were certainly affected by the Depression, but this institution helped to convert the town’s center in 1936 from wood to brick. Many of the yellow brick buildings on Church Street across from the courthouse bear the 1936 construction date.
The Salyersville National Bank, chartered in 1902, no longer operates out of this location, but the institution remains in business elsewhere in the county. Although Salyersville and Magoffin County have fallen on hard times in the past few decades, the Salyersville Bank building remains as a testament to the community’s prosperity a century ago.
Source: Nat’l Register