First National Bank Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Schleicher County, in the town of Eldorado, Texas, a group of local investors looked at each other sometime in 1906 and decided they were going to build something worth looking at. They pooled their money, thirty thousand dollars in all, and set about forming the First National Bank of Eldorado.

Now thirty thousand dollars was no small thing, and these folks meant business. They hired contractors Drew and Harvey, and Drew and Harvey did not show up with ordinary materials. They went local.

Native limestone, pulled right from the land around them, and by 1907 that bank building was standing. And friend, it was not a shy building. Renaissance Revival style, the marker tells us, with segmented arches and exaggerated details.

Exaggerated. That word is right there on the marker, and I love that somebody put it there. And crowning the whole thing, a three-part parapet fitted with spherical finials.

Little stone spheres sitting up top like the building was wearing a crown, daring you to walk past without looking up. The First National Bank operated there, proud as you please, until 1913, when it merged with the Eldorado State Bank. The merged institution kept right on using that limestone building, and did so all the way through 1942.

Then the building changed its personality entirely. What had been a house of finance and serious financial faces became, of all things, a popular pool and domino hall. Same walls, same arches, same spherical finials watching over the proceedings, just a whole lot more laughter inside.

That building went from safekeeping dollars to safekeeping a good time, and honestly, out in Eldorado, Texas, that might be the better job.

What the marker says

Local investors raised $30,000 in 1906 to form the First National Bank of Eldorado, Texas. Contractors Drew and Harvey used native limestone to construct this bank building in 1907. Its Renaissance Revival style features segmented arches and exaggerated details capped by a 3-part parapet with spherical finials. The bank merged with the Eldorado State Bank in 1913 and remained here until 1942. This site subsequently became a popular pool and domino hall. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1993