Side A: The Erie Terminal Building, constructed 1921-1922, serviced both the Erie and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railways and area commerce. The design, by Swiss-born, Youngstown architect Paul Boucherle (1882-1966), is in the Commercial Style with simple classical details. The six-story building housed a passenger railroad station on the first floor and Erie Railway offices on the fifth and sixth floors. A one-story commercial bay faced Commerce Street and was the home of the International Bank and later the Morris Plan Bank. The widening of Commerce Street removed the bay in 1939. Once named the Hamory Building for its financial backer, Gustave Hamory, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and renovated in 2012, creating apartments in the upper floors and restoring the first-story railway spaces.
Side B: Gustave Hamory (1869-1946), financier of the Erie Terminal Building, was one of the region’s prominent Hungarian-American citizens. Born in Hungary, Hamory spoke Croatian, English, German, Polish, and Slovak, as well as Hungarian. He came to Pittsburgh in 1886 and moved to Youngstown in 1900, where he established The International Bank on Phelps Street, with branches in Sharon, PA, and Campbell, OH. The International Bank moved to the Erie Terminal Building after it opened in 1922. Hamory’s banks supplied money orders and drafts all over the world, exchanged foreign currencies, provided a steamship ticketing service, and offered interpretation in 14 languages. Hamory retired in 1925, selling the bank to the Morris Plan Bank and leaving his son George in charge of the travel services.
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