04/28/2026
Friend and Maher Society contributor Alan Sonneman is helping to host an incredible series of events in Winona, MN this weekend! Details below...
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For Immediate Release: April 20th, 2026
What: Winona National Bank / WNB-Financial Open House Event
When: Saturday, May 2nd, 2026 from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M.
Where: 204 Main St., Winona, Minn.
If you’ve never heard of George Washington Maher, you’re not alone! One of our nation’s leading architects in the early 20th century, Maher didn’t stamp his name on his buildings. Yet two of Winona’s signature landmarks were designed by him: the J.R. Watkins Medical Company administration building (1911) and the Winona National Bank (1916). The fact that three of Maher’s major commissions were constructed here is a mark of special distinction. (The Watkins family’s 10,000 sq. ft. mansion called Rockledge located in nearby Homer, also completed in 1911, is no longer extant.)
Join us on Saturday, May 2nd for an Open House to be held in what some locals still call “the Watkins Bank” —today’s WNB-Financial—located at 204 Main Street. Help us celebrate the 110th anniversary of their beautiful Egyptian Revival building with this event co-sponsored by the Winona Preservation Commission (HPC) and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Open House runs from 11:00 A.M. until 2:00 P.M. and is free and open to the public.
Guided tours of the bank’s exterior will take place at 11:15 A.M. and at 1:00 P.M. led by Luke Sims, the City of Winona’s Senior Planner. Tours of the interior will follow consecutively at 11:30 A.M. and 1:15 P.M. led by local historian and storyteller Joe Hughes. A short aerial drone film depicting the bank complex and its neighborhood created by videographer Bill Kuhl (Winona’s “Eyes in the Sky Guy”) will be screened continuously in the south wing’s Trust Department.
In the 2nd floor conference room, guests will have the opportunity to chat with award-winning interpreter Lacey Korb in the costumed guise of Grace Watkins King. Mrs. King’s vintage fi****ms collection is there on permanent display. Known in her day as the “Annie Oakley of Southeastern Minnesota,” Grace, who was the daughter of J.R. Watkins, and her husband E.L. King, Sr., applied their dead-eyed marksmanship skills on two East African safaris during the mid-1920s. The exotic taxidermied specimens they bagged are also on display nearby.
At noon we’ll be featuring a very special guest, Winona native Alan Sonneman, who is a prominent landscape artist based in Palo Alto, Calif. An authority on George W. Maher and the Prairie School of Architecture, Sonneman will present an illustrated talk on that topic. Maher’s contemporaries who created this iconic American style include Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Minneapolis-based architectural firm of Purcell, Feick, and Elmslie (Winona’s Merchants Bank was designed by them in 1912).
The noon program will also include a brief presentation by HPC chair and local realtor Aaron Perleberg of the Commission’s annual awards to individuals and buildings that exemplify best practices in historic preservation and education.
Wheelchair access to the Open House may be found in the bank’s attached parking garage off 4th Street. Public restrooms on the second floor aren’t accessible by elevator. However, the Sapori di Sicilia Bistro, located directly across Main Street, has generously offered event guests with mobility challenges to utilize their facilities free of charge.
