DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to give it to you straight with a little room to breathe. Ore City, up in Upshur County, was founded about 1910 as an iron mining center. Now right there you've got a town with ambition baked right into the name.
And the people who settled it wasted no time. On December 16, 1911, the citizens of Ore City organized the Guarantee State Bank. They didn't even have a proper building yet.
They set up shop, temporarily, in the local schoolhouse. Picture that. Loans and ledgers between the spelling primers and the chalkboards.
But by 1912 they had built a brick structure, right here on this very site. That's the spot you're standing near right now. The first president of that bank was State Representative W.
O. Stamps, and here's where the story gets interesting. The iron mill that Ore City had been counting on, the whole reason the town existed, never materialized.
It just didn't come together. Hard times followed. But Stamps had set up farsighted policies, and the bank held on.
Cattle, hogs, mules, and crops. That's what secured loans in Ore City, same as in farm centers all across Texas. Nothing fancy, nothing that required a mill that never showed up.
Just the land and the animals and the work. The bank kept going, kept lending, kept the community in motion. In 1927 it was renamed the Security State Bank.
New name, same ground. And then in 1968, the firm erected a new building nearby and moved on in. From a schoolhouse to a brick building to a brand new home.
That's not just a bank's history. That's the whole stubborn, adapting spirit of a town that kept finding a way.
What the marker says
Ore City was founded about 1910 as an iron mining center. On Dec. 16, 1911, its citizens organized the Guarantee State Bank, and after operating temporarily in the local schoolhouse, they built a brick structure on this site in 1912. State Representative W. O. Stamps, the first president, set up farsighted policies during the hard times when the iron mill failed to materialize. Cattle, hogs, mules, and crops figured as loan collateral here as in other Texas farm centers. Renamed the Security State Bank in 1927, the firm erected and moved into a new building nearby in 1968. (1976)