DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you're rolling through San Antonio and you happen to glance over at a building with Moorish arches and a decorative corner tower that looks like it belongs somewhere between a Victorian novel and a sultan's daydream — well, friend, there's a story behind that limestone. George W.
Brackenridge and others organized the San Antonio National Bank back in 1866, and they had the distinction of standing up the first federally chartered banking institution in the city. That's no small thing in a place where banking history runs as deep as the river that cuts through it. Now, the bank didn't start out in this building — not by a long shot.
By the time this particular structure went up, it was already serving as the fourth home the bank had called its own. Fourth. These folks knew how to grow into a city.
They brought in Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, a New York architect, and he didn't phone it in. He designed the building using limestone mined right out of the area quarries — local stone for a landmark institution — and when it was completed in 1886, it announced itself.
Victorian design, Moorish arches, ornate ironwork, and that decorative southeast corner tower standing there like it had something to prove. And it did, because the San Antonio National Bank occupied that facility for a good long while after 1886 — all the way until 1970. Over a century of banking, started in 1866, housed in this stone and ironwork cathedral since 1886.
Some buildings just refuse to be forgotten.
What the marker says
This structure was built to house the San Antonio National Bank, organized by George W. Brackenridge and others in 1866 as the first federally chartered banking institution in the city. Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, A New York architect, designed the building using limestone mined from area Quarries. Completed in 1886, it served as the fourth structure for the bank. The victorian design features moorish arches, ornate ironwork, and a decorative southeast corner tower. The bank occupied the facility until 1970.