Following construction of the Illinois Central Railroad, frame and brick commercial buildings rose on the east side of the Town Square. About 1870, the 100 block of North Washington included the Richart and Campbell Building, which housed a store, bank, and opera house and is the oldest surviving building on the Square. In 1894, the First National Bank bought the bankrupt Richart and Campbell Store and hired Isaac Rapp to remodel the structure. Rapp, born in 1830 and died in 1913, was trained in New York, considered one of Carbondale's most respected architects, and redesigned the building in the Second Empire architectural style. Further major remodeling changed part of the 100 block of North Washington in the late 1890s, and a third remodeling of the Richart and Campbell Building was visible by about 1920.