Bassett and Bassett Banking House

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the Bassett and Bassett Banking House. Benjamin H. and Thomas J. Bassett, two men sharing a name and apparently a vision, opened their newly-created bank and set up their law office right there in the same building, shortly after its completion in 1873.

Now that is a particular kind of confidence, putting your bank and your law practice under one roof. The building itself was no ordinary structure. Those bricks were manufactured by the local Wild and Co.

Brickyard, and whoever was doing the designing had Italianate ambitions. Round arches. Stucco hood moldings framing every door and window opening.

The kind of details that tell a town something about itself, that say somebody here means business, and means it with some style. The bank operated out of that building until it closed in 1884. Then time kept moving, the way it does in Brenham and everywhere else, and sometime in the early nineteen hundreds a third story went up on top of it all, adding another chapter to a building that had already seen a few.

It still stands today as an important Brenham landmark, carrying those round arches and those stucco moldings right into the present. Wild and Co. bricks, Bassett ambition, and a skyline that got a little taller somewhere in the early nineteen hundreds. Not a bad run for one address.

What the marker says

Benjamin H. and Thomas J. Bassett opened their newly-created bank and located their law office in this building soon after its completion in 1873. Built with bricks manufactured by the local Wild & Co. Brickyard, the Italianate structure housed the bank until it closed in 1884. An important Brenham landmark, the building features round arches and stucco hood moldings at door and window openings. The third story was added in the early 1900s.