1878 to 1925
Excerpt of 1916 Sanborn Insurance Map of Tallahassee, showing the corner of Adams and Park. The Union Bank building address is 217 Adams Street, and it is shown housing Gramling’s Feed Store, founded in 1915.
Courtesy of University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries
In the 1870s, a national schism in the Episcopal Church brought religion to the Union Bank building. The church split over disagreements about interfaith Christianity. One morning, Reverend James Harrison announced to his surprised congregation in Monticello that he was leaving and joining the Reformed Episcopal Church. On Christmas Day 1877, Harrison conducted a service in the bank building to a mixed group of evangelical Methodists and Episcopalians.
The new congregation held services in the Union Bank building throughout 1878, and in 1879, the National Freedman’s Commission sold the bank to the church. The church remodeled the building, particularly the main entrance, where they were determined to create a prominent façade.
Sanborn maps, created for fire insurance purposes, indicate that the building housed a sleeping room in 1884, a storage room in 1895, and the city’s gas and water office in 1909. The city directory lists B. R. Shuford Bakery at the address in 1914.
Graco Horse and Mule Sweet Feed bag.
Gramling’s operated a feed manufacturing plant called GRACO, which was short for Gramling Company.
Collection of the Museum of Florida History
In 1915, Owen I. Gramling founded his feed store business in the Union Bank building, and in 1920, signed a five-year lease on the building. Gramling’s would go on to become a Tallahassee institution. In the 1920s, the store moved out of the bank building to its longtime location just south of downtown at 1010 Adams Street, where it remained until the business closed in 2020.
