Three historic buildings on and near Laura Street make up the Laura Street Trio, the cluster you see in downtown Jacksonville. The Trio comprises two perpendicularly arranged skyscrapers, the Florida Life Building and the Bisbee Building, and a third structure, the Old Florida National Bank—also called the Marble Bank—framed by the other two in a unique pattern. These buildings were constructed in the wake of the Great Fire of 1901, which destroyed nearly all of downtown Jacksonville, and they remain architecturally significant, though currently endangered.
The oldest of the three, the Old Florida National Bank, sits on the corner of Forsyth and Laura Streets. It was built as the Mercantile Exchange Bank in 1902 and was designed by architect Edward H. Glidden in the Classical Revival style. In 1905 it was bought by Florida Bank & Trust, predecessors to the modern Florida National Bank, who renovated and expanded it.
Renovated again in 1916, the bank gained a large banking room with a skylight, plaster detailing, and a coffered ceiling. Another refurbishing occurred in the 1950s. Framed between the two towers, the Marble Bank holds this corner where Forsyth meets Laura.