DUANE
Duane's take
Now, this one comes straight off the official marker for the Merchants and Planters National Bank up in Grayson County — here's how I tell it. Before there was a bank, there was a tree. A pecan tree, right there in Sherman, and for twenty-two years — you heard me right, twenty-two years — traders would ride up and hang their saddlebags from the branches.
Saddlebags filled with gold. Just draped over the limbs like laundry on a clothesline. That was banking in North Texas, and folks apparently found it satisfactory enough to keep right on doing it.
But Sherman was growing, and a pecan tree has its limits. In 1872, when the city itself was twenty-six years old, the Merchants and Planters National Bank was founded with a capital of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That is a considerable step up from a tree.
C. C. Binkley came on as first president, and the first board of directors read like a roll call of North Texas standing: J.
P. Dumas, Silas Hare Senior, J. M.
Lindsay, J. H. Slater, G.
V. Winkle, and C. A.
Andrews. Names that meant something in that country. The bank set itself up as the hub of not just Sherman, but the whole North Texas area and the Indian Territory beyond — ranchers, farmers, traders, all of them pulling toward this place the way rivers pull toward a confluence.
It promoted the growth of Sherman, and the region felt it. By 1884, the institution had grown substantial enough to become a national bank. One of the oldest banks in all of North Texas, the marker says, and when you consider what came before it — a pecan tree and a prayer — that feels about right.
Some things take root slow, and some things take root sudden. But either way, what started swinging from the branches of a tree eventually built itself four walls and a vault. Sherman had arrived.
What the marker says
One of the oldest banks in North Texas. Replaced Sherman's "Pecan Tree Bank"; for 22 years traders hung saddlebags filled with gold on tree's branches. Bank was founded in 1872 with $150,000 capital when city was 26 years old. Promoted growth of Sherman and was hub of North Texas area and Indian Territory, serving ranchers, farmers, traders. Became national bank in 1884. First president was C. C. Binkley; first directors, J. P. Dumas, Silas Hare, Sr., J. M. Lindsay, J. H. Slater, G. V. Winkle, C. A. Andrews.