Iola State Bank and Madison Avenue

Looking west on Madison Avenue, street trolley cars and horse and buggies traveled past buildings whose architecture remained the same 110 years later. The Iola State Bank building was very modern for its time. During the Depression of the 1930s, the bank had a buzzer system connected to Stanley Toland's law office in the upstairs of the adjoining building to the south. Toland, who grew up on a farm, was handy with a rifle, and if the buzzer rang, he was to lean out of his office window and shoot any fleeing robbers, though he never had to do so.

Iola, Kansas · United States