DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the First National Bank of Beeville. Now settle in, because this one starts with money under a floorboard. Before Beeville had a proper bank — and we're talkin' all the way up to 1890 — the closest thing folks had to a financial institution was A.C.
Jones' general store. And when I say 'financial institution,' I mean a loose floorboard behind the counter. That's where area residents stashed their money.
Not a vault. Not a ledger. A floorboard.
In a general store. Now, Beeville had been the county seat of Bee County since 1860, so this wasn't some frontier outpost — it was a proper town that just hadn't quite gotten around to the whole 'secure banking' situation. What changed things?
The railroads came rollin' in. In the late 1880s, both the San Antonio and Aransas Pass and the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railways arrived, and with them came more people and more trade than that old floorboard could ever hope to handle. So in December of 1889, thirty investors sat down together and organized the First National Bank of Beeville.
They elected a board of directors — A.C. Jones, Louis B. Randall, B.W.
Klipstein, J.H. O'Connor, Viggo Kohler, J.C. Wood, and J.R.
Hoxie — seven names, thirty backers, and one shared conviction that Beeville deserved better than a loose plank. The bank opened for business in 1890, right there on the courthouse square. It stayed on that square until 1894, when it packed up and moved to the vicinity of the railroad depot — the new center of gravity in town.
And here's where the story gets quietly remarkable: the bank operated at that depot-area site for sixty-six years. Sixty-six years at one address. Then it moved in 1960, and again in 1984, chasing the major auto routes the way it once chased the railroads.
By 1992, the First National Bank of Beeville stood as one of the few banks in all of South Texas to have remained independent and locally owned and operated for one hundred years. Started with thirty investors and a floorboard full of somebody else's savings — and it held.
What the marker says
Beeville, the county seat of the Bee County since 1860, did not have a secure bank until 1890, when the First National Bank of Beeville opened for business. Prior to that year, the town's only banking facility was A.C. Jones' general store, where some area residents stored money under a loose floorboard behind the counter. The increases in population and trade volume brought by the arrival of the San Antonio & Aransas Pass and the Gulf, Western Texas & Pacific Railways in the late 1880s made the establishment of a bank necessary. In December of 1889 thirty investors met and organized the First National Bank of Beeville and elected A.C. Jones, Louis B. Randall, B.W. Klipstein, J.H. O'Connor, Viggo Kohler, J.C. Wood and J.R. Hoxie to the first board of directors. The First National Bank of Beeville operated on the courthouse square until 1894, when it relocated to the vicinty of the railroad depot. Functioning at that site for 66 years, the bank moved in 1960 and again in 1984 to be near major auto routes. It is one of the few banks in South Texas to have been independent and locally owned and operated for one hundred years. (1992)