Located at 4th Street 207 in Des Moines, Iowa, the Hawkeye Insurance Company Building was completed in 1869. Designed by prominent local architect William Foster, it may be the oldest surviving example of his work and is the oldest commercial building in the downtown area that maintains its original integrity. The building housed the city's first successful casualty insurance company, which grew to be the largest center for insurance companies outside of the east coast.
The three-story brick commercial block was designed in the Italianate style, featuring a bracketed cornice and tall thin hooded windows. It was intended to be the first part of a larger complex, with a two-story annex completed to the north two years later and two more three-story sections finished before 1883.
The building has undergone several transformations over the years. In 1913, the firm Proudfoot, Bird and Rawson converted it into a hotel, altering the original cornice and eliminating the raised basement. It was later converted into an apartment building in the 1960s, and the cornice was restored in the 1980s. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
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