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(Photograph by Dell Upton)
Citizens Bank is the oldest incorporated bank in the state of Arkansas. The Van Buren branch, founded in 1886 by attorney B. J. Brown, first occupied a frame building in Main Street’s 700 block and then moved to a building in the 600 block that abuts the Crawford County Bank. The 1889 construction of the Crawford County Bank (CW3) left the Citizens Bank without prestigious street corner status, and so it relocated across the street to its current home, a two-story brick and limestone building. The large round-arched windows of the first story and the canted corner entrance are outlined with bold limestone voussoirs. Above them, a narrow limestone band topped by a corbeled brick band marks the second story, and this upper floor has small square windows centered over the lower arched windows. A brick and stone parapet wall complete the building. Bank operations ceased in the mid-twentieth century, and the building has since been occupied by different commercial ventures.