A. Moorman and Company collection

Albert Moorman was born in Germany in 1860 and emigrated to the U.S. with his family in about 1864, settling in Chicago. He was raised and educated in Chicago public schools in that city. He became an apprentice woodcarver at 12 and worked on the Iowa State Capitol in this capacity several years later. In 1905, he started a furniture company in St. Paul and soon pivoted towards designing bank fixtures and interiors. This change led his firm to design and build small banks throughout the Midwest, and eventually, it became one of the most successful designers of small-town banks in the region. At one time, they held 30% of the business for the Northwestern National Bancorporation of Minneapolis. In 1927, A. Moorman and Company got hired to remodel the famous National Farmers Bank of Owatonna, designed by Louis H. Sullivan in 1907-1908. Moorman died in 1927 in St. Paul, and the practice passed on to his sons Frank and Al and partners E.A. Tyler and Kindy C. Wright. The firm ceased operations in the late 1970s.