Biz Buzz shares business tidbits from across the tri-state area. In addition to this update from Glen Haven, Wis., we will share other developments in Wednesday’s edition.

GLEN HAVEN, Wis. — A century-old bank in Glen Haven reopened recently as a history-immersed bar.

The Vault, 13207 Main St., offers area craft beers and wines with plans to serve jumbo pretzels soon.

Owners Kerri Price and her husband, Tim, have spent the past six months peeling back the new by tearing down modern walls and tearing up modern flooring.

Beneath four layers of brick and one steel plate, they found the Glen Haven Bank’s titular vault, plus its original 6,000-pound bell safe and safety deposit boxes.

It’s now both the host of the bar’s refrigerator and eye candy to its guests. The exterior steel plating is now the business’s front sign.

A 1942 Lady Liberty silver half-dollar that once fell behind a box now gleams under epoxy at the new pump table. A retrofitted counter of the original bank is a pub table at the front window of the bar.

The original tin of the ceiling wasn’t there beneath the modern one, so an antique bronze art deco-inspired one was added, lit by moody Sputnik lighting. The original flooring of the structure has been uncovered and refinished, scraped clean of decades of vinyl and age.

There’s even an old crank phone, found in the crawl space and promptly mounted on a wall for display.

“(We’re) just trying to take you back in time to maybe what it would have looked like back in the day if it were a bar,” Price said. “Everything is still there from the bank. There’s just a different function.”

The building’s history stretches back to 1911, when it started as The Glen Haven Bank.

Its presence harkens back to the heydays of the town

Originally known by the humble moniker “Stump Town,” Glen Haven gained its own name around 1856, plus the bulk of its population and economic relevance in 1884, with the arrival of a railroad in town.

The town would become one of the largest shipping points for livestock between St. Paul and Chicago up until the early 20th century, when the impact  of both the federal lock and dam project and semi-trucks was felt.

But, between the railroad and the semi-truck, was the Glen Haven Bank. It would serve the town until the Great Depression, when People’s State Bank bought it. It closed two years ago, but Price saw the space as an opportunity to acknowledge what once was.

“Glen Haven used to have everything,” Price wrote in a Facebook post sharing the history of her hometown and soliciting stories on the history of Glen Haven. “A barbershop, two grocery stores, a feed store (where you could even buy shoes), a hardware store, a gas station, a public school, a Catholic school and even a passenger train. How amazing is that? A passenger train in a town of this size.”

Price’s family history in Glen Haven is almost as deeply rooted as that of the building. She and her 11 siblings were born and raised on a Glen Haven Township dairy farm owned by her parents in the 1970s, but her grandfather owned a bar named White’s Tavern long before, in the 1930s.

“100 years later, I’m doing the same thing,” Price said. “It’s a cool connection. … What other stories can we dig up from (within) these walls?”

For hours and other updates, visit tinyurl.com/the-vaultbar.