Create folder of images in root directory

I want to store some images outside the uploads folder to use for banners. I created a folder in my public_html/ folder in cPanel called “banner-images”, then put all my images in there but when I navigate to the images I get a 404 page. If I put a plain html document in the inside the folder I can view that just fine. For example, https://www.mysite.com/banner-images/test.html works just as I would expect, https://www.mysite.com/banner-images/banner1.png gets 404 error.

Am I doing something wrong? Is it possible to do what I want to do without a plugin?