First National Bank Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Back in 1889, somebody decided that Stephenville needed a proper bank, and when you're building a proper bank, you don't just call anybody. You call J.

Riely Gordon. Now Gordon was a prominent San Antonio architect, and he left his mark on this town square not once, not twice, but three times. This First National Bank Building was the earliest of those three structures, and you can still see why he had a reputation worth keeping.

The stonework is elaborate, the arches are large and rounded in that Romanesque Revival tradition, and then Gordon goes and throws in a Queen Anne style tower and a pedimented entrance, just to let you know he wasn't working from a short list of ideas. The building has got layers, and it was meant to impress. It succeeded.

The bank itself was organized by C. J. Shapard, and by 1893 the institution was carrying assets in excess of a hundred and fifty-eight thousand dollars.

That was real money, and this was a real bank, housed in a building that announced the fact before you ever walked through the door. But the story doesn't stay comfortable. Depressed oil and cattle prices have a way of reorganizing things, and in 1925 the First National Bank merged with Farmers National Bank.

The vault doors closed on one chapter, and another one opened. What didn't close, though, was that building on the square, with its Romanesque arches and its Queen Anne tower still standing right where Gordon put them in 1889, outlasting the boom, outlasting the bust, outlasting just about everything except the story itself.

What the marker says

Built in 1889 to house the city's first bank, this is the earliest of three structures on the town square designed by prominent San Antonio architect J. Riely Gordon. It features elaborate stonework and large arches typical of Romanesque Revival architecture and a Queen Anne style tower and pedimented entrance. The bank, organized by C. J. Shapard and with assets in excess of $158,000 by 1893, merged with Farmers National Bank in 1925 due to depressed oil and cattle prices. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1994