Jewel of the Plains

I also stopped in Grinnel, IA, which is about 15 miles away. Louis Sullivan was the architect who built this bank in the early 1900's. It is dubbed The Jewel of the Plains, and feels like the closest thing Iowa might have to a cathedral. An amazing book about Sullivan, and a photographer named Richard Nickel, is called "They All Fall Down". Dick Nickel became obsessed by Sullivan in the 1960's as many cities in the Mid-West began to tear down important pieces of American architecture to build parking garages and newer office buildings. Nickel died when a stairwell in the Chicago Stock Exchange collapsed on him as he tried to photograph and collect artifacts before it was fully demolished "
Sullivan's signature stone work

The ceiling inside
And, a mid-west thrift store.