It is one of downtown Indianola’s most recognizable landmarks.
The two-story former Planters Bank & Trust building towers over most others in the area, as it sits in the center of Front Avenue and faces directly down Main Street.
It was once downtown’s center of commerce, and it might be again, thanks to a restoration effort by the building’s owner, Dr. Adrian Brown.
“I was always intrigued and fascinated with the building,” Brown said, during an interview in the building’s new conference room.
Brown said that about five years ago, he learned that Planters Bank was accepting bids on the property. The building is iconic to most people who grew up when it was an operational bank, and it had an even deeper connection for Brown.
His father, after retiring as principal from Gentry High School, took a job at the bank as a security guard.
“From time to time, I would stop by and visit with him,” Brown said.
Brown reached out to then Planters executive Weldon Aultman, and he submitted and won the bid.
“We thank Planters Bank for entrusting us that we would preserve it, and that’s what we have tried to do,” Brown said.
The building has about 5,000 total square feet of space, with 2,600 on the first floor and about the same on top.
Brown said that he sat on the property for a little over a year, while he decided just how he would go about the rehabilitation process. Today, the first floor is just about finished and ready for a tenant.
“We gutted the building out, all the way down to the studs,” Brown said.
The original office space was an open concept floor plan.
“We ended up framing it up inside,” Brown said. “We have replumbed it. We have rewired it.”
Brown said that Indianola Electric did the wiring, and Cleveland-based Voss Plumbing handled the piping.
Warren Heating & Cooling installed new mechanical systems.
The dropped ceilings were ripped out, Brown said, and replaced with knotted pine, naturally finished, with decorative crown molding and baseboards.
The dark green color scheme, Brown said, is reflective of offices in the early 1900s.
There are now several offices within the first floor, including an office where the main vault once was. The original vault doors, along with two original floor safes have been placed into a restoration program.
“They have been in a restoration shop for two-and-half years,” Brown said.
The second floor, Brown said, is probably in better shape than the first floor was when the project began, but the rehab upstairs has been hindered by the broken lift or elevator.
“We want to complete the restoration and renovation of it by going upstairs,” Brown said. “The only thing that is holding us up from going upstairs now is we have this (old) lift. That has to be rehabilitated or a new one installed.”
Brown said that the second floor has a similar plan as the original first story, which includes a full kitchen, full bathroom and three or four offices.
As much of a fixture as the building itself is downtown, the clock that is attached out front is perhaps just as big a part of Indianola’s history.
“I remember as a kid, coming downtown, there was a chime on that clock, and I think it chimed every hour or at 12 and 6 o’clock,” Brown said. “(Indianola Electric is) researching a way to get that chime back going, and hopefully we can get
that done this summer.”
According to a 1974 article in The Enterprise-Tocsin, the clock was purchased and installed at the bank location in 1940. Even a half century ago, the article said, “For as long as some downtown Indianola workers can remember, their comings and goings have been regulated by one of the three faces of the old clock on the Indianola Bank on Front Street.”
Brown said that he has not heavily marketed the first floor, but it is move-in ready, fully-furnished and all.
Whether he will ultimately lease the building or sell it once the rehab is complete is still up in the air.
“I’m more concerned with trying to preserve a piece of Indianola’s history,” Brown said. “Then, whether we continue to maintain the property ourselves or whether we enter a long-term lease or sell to a suitable buyer, all things are on the table.”
Brown hopes that this project will be an anchor for downtown development for years to come.
City's grand old timepiece...
By MARIE HEMPHILL
THE ENTERPRISE-TOCSIN, 1974
For as long as some downtown Indianola workers can remember, their comings and goings have been regulated by one of the three faces of the old clock on the Indianola Bank on Front Street.
And while the chimes are not always heeded by the busy pedestrians below, the old time piece with its Westminster action faithfully sounds out each quarter hour.
Burton Moore, vice-president of Indianola Bank, says he is not sure just how old their clock is.
His father, the late Herman Moore, had it installed when this branch of the Planters’ Bank and Trust Co. of Ruleville was opened here in 1940.
"I know he bought it in New Orleans where it had been used on one of the Hibernia Bank's branches," he said. "It was made by the O. B. McClintock Clock Co., which is no longer in existence. I know there are not many of its kind around any more, but one exactly like it can be seen on the front of the Poindexter Branch of the First National Bank on West Capitol St., in Jackson."
The operation of the big clock is controlled by a smaller one ("the master") on the inside over the vault. A weekly ritual every Friday afternoon is climbing up on a stepladder to wind it.
"This job always falls to the youngest member of the bank's employees,” Mr. Moore said, "and currently it has been delegated to Charles Chatoney. Recently, it has been losing about three minutes a week. If it gets off much more than that, it seems to upset people, and they come in or call in to tell us about it.
"We have a contract for maintenance, oiling, and cleaning the clock with Diebold of Jackson, a firm which deals in bank security equipment, and their representative, Wallace Arnold, comes twice a year to take care of it. Red Simpson, Central Buick mechanic, also has a hand in its performance as it's his responsibility to keep the lights going."
The Indianola Bank force is looking forward to being in their handsome new building, a modern, cypress and brick structure with a skylighted lobby, next Christmas. It will be located on the site of their present drive-in on Catchings Street. "However," Mr. Moore reported, "we intend to continue operating here as a branch. The digital time and temperature marker at the drive-in will still be used somewhere at the new building for the convenience of the public, and the big clock will remain here on Front Street where it has been for the past 35 years."
With perfect confidence in the accuracy of this enormous and handsome mechanism, workers downtown gauge their coffee breaks, lunch or closing time, and calibrate their watches with the hour it proclaims.
Christmas shoppers, pausing long enough to look up at this familiar landmark, complain to anyone within hearing distance that time gets away too fast and they still have much to do.
Teenagers check its big dials at night, hoping for just a few more minutes before the curfew deadline laid down by parents.
On Sundays, the position of the big clock's hands is quickly scrutinized by hurrying church-goers who have dawdled a bit too long over their morning coffee or the comic sections.
It's a grand old clock and an Indianola landmark.
