Greenville Building and Loan Association

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Back in the 1880s, something was stirring in Greenville, Texas. A second railroad line was being constructed right into town, and the people who were paying attention, the ones who'd come to Hunt County and put down roots and started building something, they could feel it.

This place was going to matter. Greenville was going to be a real center for trade and commerce, and if you believed that, the question was: what do you do next? You build an institution to match the ambition.

On December 17, 1886, the state of Texas chartered the Greenville Building and Loan Association. Seven men signed on as original directors. Thomas Jefferson Gee.

I. Popper. Ira D.

Wyse. T. E.

Byrd. Ephraim W. Briscoe.

Frank P. Alexander. And Asher Mandelbaum.

Say those names out loud sometime. A lot of those men had migrated to Greenville, came from somewhere else and chose this place, and then turned around and became active leaders in its early development. That tells you something about who they were.

Their belief in the town's potential, as the marker puts it, was reflected in the very act of establishing the association. Not just talk. Paper, charter, signatures, money.

Now here's the line that ought to stop you cold: the Greenville Building and Loan Association became the second oldest continuing thrift institution in the state of Texas. Second oldest. Continuing.

That word continuing is doing a lot of work, and it earned every bit of it. Because the story doesn't skip over the hard part. The mid-1930s came around, the height of the nation's economic depression, and a lot of institutions didn't make it through.

The directors of this one converted the association to a federal mutual savings and loan institution. They didn't fold. They adapted, and they kept going.

Then in 1983, when it became a federally-chartered savings bank, it was renamed Centennial Savings Bank. Different name, same thread running all the way back to seven men and a second railroad and a December day in 1886. The marker was placed in the Texas Sesquicentennial year of 1986, one hundred and fifty years after Texas itself, and one hundred years to the month after that original charter.

Some institutions and some stories just keep showing up right on time.

What the marker says

This financial institution was chartered by the state of Texas on December 17, 1886, as the Greenville Building and Loan Association. The formation of the association came as a second railroad line was constructed to Greenville, signaling the future of Hunt County Seat as an important center for trade and commerce. The original directors were Thomas Jefferson Gee, I. Popper, Ira D. Wyse, T. E. Byrd, Ephraim W. Briscoe, Frank P. Alexander, and Asher Mandelbaum. Many of the first directors and stockholders were individuals who had migrated to Greenville and became active leaders in its early development. Their belief in the town's potential was reflected in the establishment of the association, the second oldest continuing thrift institution in the state. In the mid-1930s, during the height of the nation's economic depression, the directors successfully converted the association to a federal mutual savings and loan institution. Renamed Centennial Savings Bank in 1983, when it became a federally-chartered savings bank, the institution has continued to reflect the community support advocated by its founders. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986