Banker Carl Bennett sought not just a prominent new building for his family’s business but a work of art, and in 1906 he turned to Louis Sullivan, one of the country’s most inventive designers, to create a magnificent home for the National Farmers’ Bank in downtown Owatonna. Their collaboration produced what many consider the finest small-town bank in America. After helping make Chicago the country’s architectural capital in the 1890s, Sullivan devised for Owatonna a bank unlike any other, guided by his belief that a building’s function and form should complement one another. He conceived a structure resembling a treasure chest, a fitting image for a bank that held people’s savings, using a theme he often favored—an arch within a square—attached to a rectangular office building. He combined those simple monumental shapes with complex ornamental details, including two huge stained-glass windows set in sandstone-and-brick walls, each framed by a wide band of terra cotta accented by a narrow band of glass mosaic. Sullivan’s sketches were completed by his draftsman George Elmslie, who designed much of the ornamentation and later became a noted Minnesota architect, and skilled craftsmen joined them to create the ornate interior color symphony of painted plaster, stained glass, and huge cast-iron chandeliers. The bank was dedicated in 1908, and although remodeling altered some interior features, much of Louis Sullivan’s original splendor remained, and in 1976 the building was designated a National Historic Landmark.