Old Boyle Building (State Bank Building)

The Boyle Realty Company purchased the State Bank Building in 1916, five years after the bank closed. When built in 1909, the short-lived bank was Arkansas’s second skyscraper and the state’s tallest building. At eleven stories, it surpassed the Southern Trust Building (PU16), Arkansas’s first skyscraper, by one story. The Boyle Building reflects the turn-of-the-twentieth-century preference for skyscraper design in its tripartite massing, with a strong base, multiple stories of office space, and a distinctive cap. Its form and materials are also typical of Mann’s skyscraper designs at this time—white in color, with profuse terra-cotta ornament across the upper floors and a bold cornice and deep eaves. The twelfth-floor penthouse story was added to the building in 1949, and its design is in keeping with Mann’s work. Most of the other alterations to the building have centered on the first floor storefronts. The building is waiting a new use.