The Laredo National Bank

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Laredo National Bank, and friends, this is a story worth slowing down for. It starts, as so many Texas stories do, a long time before Texas was even Texas. Back in 1755, an area rancher by the name of Tomas Sanchez founded Villa de San Agustin de Laredo right here on this ground.

And for the next hundred and twenty-five years, this was an agrarian community, rooted in the land, steady and deliberate, the way farming towns tend to be. Then came the railroads. Three of them, converging on Laredo in the 1880s.

Now, when three railroad lines meet in one place, things change. Business expands. New faces arrive.

European immigrants, Mexican immigrants, people chasing what opportunity tends to look like when iron rails show up in a town. And with all that movement and commerce and new money looking for somewhere to go, the conditions were ripe for what came next. A San Antonio merchant named John King Beretta took notice.

In 1892, he opened a privately-owned bank here in Laredo. That's a bold move, a merchant from San Antonio planting a bank in a border town that was still finding its new shape. But the bank prospered.

So well, in fact, that by 1895 the U.S. Treasury chartered it as the Laredo National Bank. Official.

Legitimate. Built to last. And what kept it going in those early years?

Mexican trade, for one. Local Bermuda Union production through the 1890s. And then, in the early 1900s, oil.

Commercial activity tied to oil production in the area gave the bank another strong current to ride. Here is where the story gets interesting, and a little sobering. The Mexican Revolution ran from 1910 to 1917, years of upheaval just across the river.

And yet the Laredo National Bank continued to prosper during that period, due partially, the marker tells us, to increased U.S. military activity in the area. History has a way of being complicated like that. By 1922, the bank was reporting two million dollars in assets.

Two million. And when the 1930s depression came rolling through and broke institutions that had seemed unbreakable, the Laredo National Bank, guided by sound fiscal policies, emerged on solid ground. That is not a small thing.

That is the kind of thing a bank puts on its wall and points to for generations. The building you see now, the one that became the bank's headquarters, was renovated between 1979 and 1983. It stands on the former site of the Robert E.

Lee and Plaza hotels, layers of Laredo history stacked right beneath the foundation. From Tomas Sanchez staking out a ranching community in 1755, to three railroads reshaping a town, to a San Antonio merchant with an eye for the future, to a bank that outlasted a revolution and a depression, this corner of Webb County has been doing something right for a very long time.

What the marker says

Villa de San Agustin de Laredo, founded here by area rancher Tomas Sanchez in 1755, was an agrarian-based community for its first 125 years. The convergence of three railroad lines here in the 1880s significantly expanded business activity in Laredo and attracted many new European and Mexican immigrants to this area. These events heralded a shift to a mercantile economy and prompted San Antonio merchant John King Beretta to open a privately-owned bank in 1892. The bank prospered and was chartered by the U.S. Treasury as the Laredo National Bank in 1895. The bank's initial success was sustained by Mexican trade, local Bermuda Union production in the 1890s, and commercial activity associated with the production of oil in the area during the early 1900s. The bank continued to prosper during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), due partially to increased U.S. military activity in the area. By 1922 Laredo National Bank boasted $2 million in assets. Sound fiscal policies allowed the bank to emerge from the 1930's depression on solid ground. In 1979-1983 this building (former site of the Robert E. Lee and Plaza hotels) was renovated for use as the bank's headquarters. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995