For much of the 20th century, the banking hall at the First National Center in Oklahoma City served as a showpiece for the downtown financial district. The great hall, as it was known, rose nearly three stories high, with marble Corinthian columns, an ornately painted ceiling, large replicas of ancient coins inspired by King Tut’s tomb mounted above the teller cages, and four murals of Oklahoma’s history by noted painter Edgar Spier Cameron. Constructed in 1931 by First National Bank and Trust. and designed by Chicago-based architecture firm Weary and Alford, the 33-story Art Deco tower was the state’s biggest building at the time, its grandeur fueled by the oil boom in defiance of the Great Depression. Indiana limestone clad the exterior, with black granite at the base and decorative aluminum panels over entrances.

But the oil bust of the 1980s brought the bank—once the state’s largest—to bankruptcy, precipitating decades of trouble for the signature building. It passed through the hands of a series of out-of-state owners. By 2015, it was in receivership again, with many tenants having fled. At one point, utilities cut service for nonpayment, shutting down the air conditioning system. The murals were flaking paint.

Learn more about the monumental effort to save & restore First National – click below to read the full UrbanLand article featuring ULI Oklahoma’s own, Gary Brooks.