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The words “Mellen State Bank” are etched into the sandstone façade over which Jeff Peters ran his right hand on Tuesday.
“It feels like history,” he said. “It almost feels like the history of connecting this area.”
A sandstone quarry on Basswood Island in the Apostle Islands, circa 1894.
Credit Jeff Peters
Those carved words and the one-story façade look just like they did when the Mellen State Bank opened in 1902.
The sandstone was quarried on Basswood Island in the Apostle Islands, the same sandstone used to build fashionable brownstone homes in East Coast cities.
The sandstone facade of Mellen State Bank.