Tradition says that, when it was built in 1905, the six-story Durham Loan and Trust Building was the tallest building in North Carolina. The distinction did not last long: within a year, envious boosters in Greensboro had erected one of seven stories. The Trust Building remains one of downtown's architectural landmarks, with its ornate brickwork, NeoClassical styling and unique rounded corner on the southeast — a feature obscured at sidewalk level by a three-story wing of the Modernist Hill Building next door.