In the 1950s and 1960s Montpelier wanted to look “modern.” Two insurance companies and the federal government constructed contemporary buildings, and some downtown buildings were “modernized” to keep up. The Montpelier National Bank joined the trend in 1963 by creating a sleek bronze, glass, and granite storefront at 15 State Street and installing an aluminum screen to hide the windows and original ornamentation of the upper two floors of its circa-1880 Italianate-style building. The screen was removed in 1983, but the bank’s modern first floor storefront remains.
