For 114 years, the home office of the Protected Home Circle (PHC; after 1964, the Protected Home Mutual Life Insurance Company) has been in Sharon. Founded as a fraternal organization, which pooled the members' money to pay death benefits, the group also provided educational, cultural, and social opportunities for their members. In 1936, a disastrous fire destroyed their earlier home, and the PHC board commissioned the Cleveland firm of Walker and Weeks to design a new building. The seven-bay, white brick, four-story Art Deco building, oriented toward the Shenango River, has a central tower with setbacks ornamented with chevrons and the company's emblem, a mother eagle protecting her offspring, painted above the riverside entrance. Protected Life's building is echoed on the river's western bank by the six-bay, three-story, limestone Winner International Building (former First Western Bank, c. 1930; 32 W. State Street).