Blessing State Bank
Blessing, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built during the boom of 1907, the Blessing State Bank is one of the few remaining commercial buildings from this period. Possibly designed by Victoria architect Jules Leffland, designer of the Blessing Hotel, the bank operated until 1932. Blessing was without a bank until 1966, when it was restored to its original function and appearance. An asymmetrical entry, arched windows, flat roof, and stately feeling reflect a classic early 20th-century bank building. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1997
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Raised during the town's 1907 boom, the Blessing State Bank is one of the few commercial buildings surviving from that era and may be the work of Victoria architect Jules Leffland, who designed the nearby Blessing Hotel. The bank operated until 1932, and after decades without one, Blessing saw the building restored to its original function and look in 1966. Its arched windows, asymmetrical entry, and flat roof give it the stately air of a classic early-20th-century bank.
Why it matters
The little bank captures the optimism of small Texas towns during the boom years before the Great Depression, when a fine masonry building signaled a community's ambitions.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jules Leffland
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Grimes Cemetery
Blessing, TX
Sea captain turned cattleman Richard Grimes opened this family burial ground in 1856 after the death of an infant grandson, on the WBG ranch he and his son had built near Matagorda Bay. The ranch was a school for the cattle trade, employing cowboys like Charles Siringo and Shanghai Pierce, and after the Civil War it launched major trail drives north to the Kansas railheads at Abilene and Dodge City. The family and its ranching legacy stretched into the twentieth century, and the cemetery remains in use today.
Clemville
Markham vicinity, TX
Once part of a grant to early colonist Henry Parker, this quiet farming and ranching land changed overnight in 1908 when F. J. Hardy struck oil and formed the Hardy Oil Company. After F. J. Clemenger bought out Hardy and expanded the fields, the community was renamed Clemville in his honor and got a post office in 1911, blossoming into a boomtown of schools, hotels, stores, and machine shops. As the economy slowed in the 1930s the population dwindled, and by century's end little remained of the once-thriving town.
Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church
Markham, TX
In 1903 a handful of Markham laborers—workers from the canals, cattle ranches, rail lines, and rice fields of a rough settlement known as 'Tent City' or 'Red Town'—organized Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church. Their first sanctuary rose in 1909 only to be leveled by a hurricane that year, and later buildings met the same fate, including one lost to Hurricane Carla in 1961. Each time the congregation rebuilt or relocated, most recently by moving in a church from the Ashby community.
W.C. Williams Building
Palacios, TX
W. C. 'Billy' Williams, born in Matagorda County in 1854 to a Danish ship's carpenter and a German mother, grew up in a coastal 'Dutch Settlement' alongside his boyhood friend, the cowboy-author Charles Siringo. After venturing into the Spindletop-era oil boom, Williams came to Palacios in 1904 and in 1909 completed this 4,200-square-foot Romanesque brick building, which anchored downtown for decades as it housed a parade of hardware stores, groceries, and a doctor's office.