Category:801 Hamilton Building, Allentown, Pennsylvania

The 801 Building has a long and interesting history. Located on the northwest corner of North Eighth and Hamilton Streets, it was built in 1901-1902 by Nathan Haas and is still known as the Haas Building. It began life as the Haas Shoe store, as Nathan Haas started his own shoe business after working for the Faars (directly on the opposite side of Eighth Street) during the late Nineteenth Century.

In 1912, it became the Penn Counties Trust Building, a bank whose chief backer was Martin E. Kern. In 1922 Kern was discovered to be Edwin Kern, a convicted felon and con man who proptly fled Allentown. Penn Counties Trust remained in operations until the onset of the Great Depression in 1932 when it failed and the bank's deposits were taken over by the Allentown National Bank.

In 1933, the building's first floor was taken over by the Williams Fashion Shop. This photos shows 801 Hamilton as it looked about 1935, just after the ground floor had been remodeled. On January 9th, 1956 the Williams Store caught fire and it closed, afterwards being replaced by Nan Corby, which opened in September 1959. It closed due to a renovation in August 1987, and afterwards a series of smaller stores took its place

Object location	40° 36′ 06″ N, 75° 28′ 26″ W	View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap	40.601667; -75.473889