Citizens State Bank
Sealy, Austin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Sealy developed on the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe railway in 1879. Cotton, rice, corn, cattle and related agricultural businesses supported a quickly-growing economy. In 1907, F. W. Hackbarth, Jr. and his son, John Hackbarth, developed commercial buildings along Main Street, and on May 20, 1907, Citizens State Bank formed and occupied the southwest corner of the John Hackbarth building. R. A. Engelking, a successful businessman who was also president of the Sealy Oil Mill Co., was the first bank president. Citizens State Bank opened with capital of $25,000 and assets of $46,000, and in 1917 relocated across the street to the southeast corner of Main and Fowlkes Streets. Citizens State Bank was able to survive money panics and the Great Depression. By the 1930s, Farmers National Bank and Sealy National Bank had closed, leaving Citizens State Bank as the only bank in Sealy. Engelking served as bank president from its organization until 1938. By 1939, capital had grown to $75,000 and assets increased to $660,456. Other long-serving presidents included E. W. Josey (1938-45) and G. R. Borgel (1946-61). The bank experienced its greatest growth in the 1960s, with assets in the millions of dollars, and completed a new facility in January 1967. Assets shrank during the recession of the 1980s, but Citizens State Bank survived without input of additional capital. Employment stability has contributed to the success of the business and in community relations, with about fifty twenty-five year employees. More than a century after opening, Citizens State Bank continues to be a reliable provider of funds and a source of strength for the community.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Sealy grew up along the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway in the cotton-and-cattle economy of the 1880s, and in 1907 Citizens State Bank opened in a new commercial building on Main Street. Under its first president, R. A. Engelking, the bank weathered money panics and the Great Depression, emerging by the 1930s as the only bank left in town. Decades of steady growth and unusually loyal employees carried it past its centennial.
Why it matters
The survival of a small-town bank through the Depression, when larger competitors failed, illustrates the fragile but vital role local finance played in sustaining rural American communities.
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Related people
- · R. A. Engelking
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Preibisch Building
Sealy, TX
German immigrant Adolph Preibisch reached Austin County in 1860 and, after the railroad town of Sealy grew up, hired mason John Colleton to build this brick commercial block in 1886-1887 from local Brazos River clay. Preibisch sold furniture and household goods — and, like many early dealers, made and sold funeral caskets. Over the decades the building housed a grocery, jeweler, and even a saloon-pool hall called "My Place" used in early films, staying in the family until 1946.
Hackbarth Building
Sealy, TX
German natives Fritz and Carolyn Hackbarth reached Galveston in 1846 and settled in Austin County, where their son F. W. Hackbarth, Jr. opened one of Sealy's earliest businesses, a lumber company, in 1885. In 1907 he razed a block of frame buildings and raised this concrete-block structure—made with masonry from his own plant and fitted with a cast-iron storefront ordered from Indiana—that housed Citizens State Bank and a succession of shops. During World War II it served as a Red Cross office and war-bond sales point, and the Sealy News was printed here into the late 1990s.
Haynes-Felcman House
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Built in 1901–1902 for H. Schumacher in Sealy, this Queen Anne residence passed in 1906 to Richard H. Haynes, who with his father founded the Haynes (Sealy) Mattress Company in 1909. Confectioner F. J. Felcman bought the house in 1927 and enlarged it, and it stayed in his family into the 1990s. Its projecting gable, wood shingles, stained glass, and jigsawn brackets make it a fine example of late-Victorian domestic style.
Wallis Cemetery
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