First National Bank of Bartlett

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the First National Bank of Bartlett. Now settle in, because this little story has got a detail in it that sounds like somebody made it up, and I promise you nobody did. It starts in 1898, when Jesse L.

Bailey, born in 1848, and his son Charles C. Bailey, born in 1871, opened a private bank in Bartlett. Not just a bank, mind you.

They ran it right alongside a mercantile business. Father and son, money and merchandise, all under one roof. They called it J.

L. Bailey and Son, Bankers, and for a couple of years, that was the financial institution of Bartlett. Then in 1900, that operation grew into something with a grander name: the First National Bank of Bartlett.

And here is where the story gets good. The bank took up its place on Clark Street downtown in a building that straddled the Williamson and Bell county line. Straddled it.

Meaning you could walk in on one side and be in Williamson County, and somewhere between you and the teller window, you crossed into Bell County. Or the other way around. The marker doesn't say which county got the door and which got the vault, and maybe that's for the best.

Some things are better left to the imagination. Now, the institution kept on through the decades, and in 1968 it was granted a state charter and renamed the First Bank and Trust Company. To mark the occasion, opening ceremonies were held in a brand new building at the corner of South Dalton and Pietzsch streets on September 15th, 1968.

Jesse Bailey was born in 1848 and died in 1926. His son Charles was born in 1871 and died in 1947. Neither man lived to see that new building go up.

But the bank they started together in 1898, father and son, bankers and merchants, sitting right on a county line like it couldn't quite make up its mind where it belonged, that bank carried on. Some things just take root, even on the line between two places.

What the marker says

Jesse L. Bailey (1848-1926) and his son Charles C. Bailey (1871-1947) opened a private bank in conjunction with a mercantile business in Bartlett in 1898. J. L. Bailey and Son, Bankers, was replaced by the First National Bank of Bartlett in 1900. The institution was located on Clark Street downtown in a building that straddled the Williamson-Bell county line. The bank was granted a state charter in 1968 and was renamed the First Bank and Trust Company. Opening ceremonies were held in the new bank building at S. Dalton and Pietzsch streets on Sept. 15, 1968.