When visitors come to Adams in June to celebrate the town’s 150th birthday, they will also come to see one of its town treasures shined up and ready for another 150 years.

The First National Bank building, while not thoroughly renovated — it is a work in progress — is still showing signs of its early beauty.

“For many years, this was City Hall, a municipal liquor store; it had a community room downstairs, a boutique,” said Nancy Thalberg, as she walked through the structure earlier this week. “And now …” she added, waving toward the return of many of its early features. “Now, there is this.”

“This” is the new home for the Adams Area Historical Society and History Center.

Thalberg, the mayor of the small Mower County community, is just one of many volunteers who have joined together to help restore the bank, built in 1924 by the noted architectural firm of Purcell and Elmslie, and to establish the history center.

Purcell and Elmslie were students of the Chicago School of Prairie School design, established by its innovator, Louis Sullivan. Elmslie was chief draftsman in Sullivan’s studio before he left to begin his own firm with Purcell and another architect, George Fieck. Both Elmslie and Purcell were contemporaries and friends of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Its significance has long been known to people like Thalberg, and Janet Stephenson, a local teacher who will head up the historical society with the bank as its home. Since it was established, residents have been bringing in a trove of items that speak of Adams’ history, from wedding dresses and scrapbooks, to town and school memorabilia — and lots and lots of photographs.

You could say that the most important holding by the society is the bank itself. Its history is part of the Midwest cultural fabric created by men like Sullivan, Wright — and Purcell and Elmslie.

The Midwest is home to many of the firm’s designs; among the most famous of their banks in southeastern Minnesota is Merchants National Bank in Winona. The decorative details in Sullivan’s National Farmer’s Bank of Owatonna — perhaps the most famous of Sullivan’s Prairie School banks — were designed by Elmslie.

Sullivan’s Owatonna bank was the first among his “jewel box” designs whose sturdy functionality was combined with beautiful but natural elements. His influence on Purcell and Elmslie is apparent in the Adams bank, as well as two others nearby designed by the pair — the State Bank of Minnesota in LeRoy (1914) and the Exchange State Bank in Grand Meadow (1910).

Adams’ small “jewel box,” built for $30,000, was partially dismantled over the years. Its vaulted ceiling was covered by a lower ceiling, which obscured some of its most beautiful elements — stained glass, with the famous “V” design often used by the Purcell and Elmslie firm, spans the length of the upper mezzanine floor on the west. Other windows, inlaid with brass, were relocated in some instances. The tellers brass cage fronts, with art glass woven into the grillwork, were mostly gone to history.

For a time, a painting created for the bank to hang over the bank’s fireplace — by noted artist, John Warner Norton — was partially covered by the lowered ceiling. Today, its full image has returned, offering up its prairie scene once more.

Some decorative details — such as the terra cotta capping that ran the width of the bank’s front — were removed. A large medallion in its middle, a signature piece, was also removed. Other details, however, found in both the interior and exterior, remain woven into casework.

Despite the losses, treasures are being discovered — some in the most unlikely places.

A key player in the mix is Dave Schmitz, who is part historian, part carpenter, part renovator, “the guy who tells us what some of these things are,” said Thalberg with a laugh, shortly after Schmitz showed her some weathered, pieces of rectangular wood found in the basement. He realized they were drawer fronts that had been removed from behind the teller’s cage area. Other pieces of cabinetry from the same area were found in the city’s pump house.

The society, fortunately, “has the original blueprints,” he said. What they have learned from them, he joked, was that “the architect’s fee was probably more than the building cost,” he said.

Another “find” were one teller’s grill in the basement, as well as all the hinged white oak doors that had been taken out in later years.

“We were really grateful to find them — the only trick was to figure out which opening they belonged to,” he said. Thalberg has spent hours working on the woodwork, applying new stain, working out the rough spots. Most are inlaid with brass fittings. The society is hoping that if anyone has other items from the bank that they might consider bringing them back to their original home.

Another treasure is one Schmitz himself has, in part, created. His great uncle, John Halbach, was a traveling photographer who, in the early part of the 20th century, photographed many scenes and people of Adams.

The images are startling for their candid profiles of townspeople and their daily lives — capturing slices of rural life not often seen from that era. Schmitz, using the original glass negatives, has printed scores of those photos that show an array of events, from babies caught at play and workmen building a new storefront, to action in baseball games, and the nearby Meyer church being built. The photos will be displayed during the sesquicentennial, when visitors will be able to tour the history center.

Building the bank was no small project, undertaken by the Warren Dean family, who had established an earlier bank across Fourth Street. In 1924 this new bank — one of the last collaborations by the Purcell and Elmslie partnership — was built. Tragically, the beautiful bank went into receivership only a few years later, taken hostage by the Great Depression. On display in the bank is a banner announcing the sale.

The volunteers are working hard to have the society’s new home ready for June 7-10 celebration. All are thankful for the response by the community which, Schmitz thinks, “has, in some ways, brought people together.”

Stephenson agreed.

“We’re so grateful for all the pieces of Adams history that have been in boxes and totes that can now be a part” of a larger, collective appreciation, she said.

“We have had about 40 volunteers put in a lot of time to make this happen,” said Thalberg.

Through their efforts, she said, despite all the changes, and all the years, Adam’s little jewel of a bank “is still here.”

For more on the 150th, which coincides with its annual Dairy Days, go to: www.aboosterclub.com.

And, for more on the new historical society, go to: www.adamsmnhistory.com.