DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the First National Bank of Bastrop. Now settle in, because this little corner of Bastrop County holds more history than the building's got square footage. Way back in the early days — before there was anything so formal as a bank in this county — if you had money you needed kept safe, you handed it to a mercantile firm and hoped for the best.
That was just how it worked out here. But come March of 1889, somebody finally said enough of that, and the Bank of Bastrop County was organized. Then, on August the tenth of that same year, it stepped up and became a national bank.
The First National Bank of Bastrop. Six men have held the president's chair at that institution over the years — J. C.
Buchanan, B. D. Orgain, W.
A. McCord, W. B.
Ransome, Earl C. Erhard, and Gates B. Mack.
Six names. Six turns at the helm of the first bank this county ever had. Now the building you'd see standing there today went up in 1950, but don't let that fool you into thinking the ground underneath it is anything ordinary.
Because that same patch of Bastrop earth, back in the 1860s, was the law office of two men — Geo. W. Jones and J.
D. Sayers. Two lawyers sharing one address, and between them they'd go on to serve Texas as Lieutenant Governor and U.S.
Congressman — each of them. And Sayers didn't stop there. He went on to serve as Governor of Texas from 1899 to 1903.
Before any of that, before the bank, before the law office even — a noted trading store run by a man named John Swan Johnson stood on that very same ground. One spot. A trading store, a law office that produced two lieutenant governors and two congressmen, one of them a governor, and then the first bank in the county.
Some pieces of land just seem to know they've got work to do.
What the marker says
First bank in county. In early days, money for safekeeping was placed with mercantile firms. Organized as "Bank of Bastrop County", in March 1889; became a national bank on Aug. 10, 1889. Presidents of this bank have been J. C. Buchanan, B. D. Orgain, W. A. McCord, W. B. Ransome, Earl C. Erhard and Gates B. Mack. Present structure built 1950, is on site of 1860's law office of Geo. W. Jones and J. D. Sayers; each served Texas as Lieutenant Governor and U.S. Congressman. Sayers was Governor, 1899-1903. Noted trading store of John Swan Johnson also stood here. (1967)