First National Bank in Big Spring
Big Spring, Howard County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Chartered on April 19, 1890, the First National Bank of Big Spring opened for business on the first floor of a two-story building at the northwest corner of Second and Clinton (now Main) streets with an initial capital of $50,000. The post office occupied the south side of the building until 1927; the remaining space was rented to a variety of tenants. West Texas National Bank, chartered on February 28, 1903, opened in a building on the northeast corner of Second and Main, and in 1909 began construction of a new building on the southeast corner of Second and Main. The 1920s were prosperous years for the local banks, but the Depression of the 1930s brought hard times to both institutions. In 1934 the two banks merged and became the First National Bank in Big Spring. The new institution occupied the former West Texas National Bank building at the southeast corner of Second and Main. In 1963 the bank moved to new facilities at the southwest corner of Fourth and Main. Pioneer ranching families involved with the early banks and the merger made a lasting contribution to the growth and prosperity of Big Spring. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chartered in 1890 with $50,000 in capital, the First National Bank of Big Spring opened on the ground floor of a downtown building that also housed the post office. A rival, West Texas National Bank, followed in 1903, and both prospered through the boom years of the 1920s before the Great Depression brought hard times. The two institutions merged in 1934 to become the First National Bank in Big Spring.
Why it matters
The bank's rise, rivalry, and Depression-era merger mirror the boom-and-bust economy of the West Texas ranching frontier and the pioneer families who built it.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · Great Depression
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Midland County
Midland, TX
Midland sits where old cattle trails once crossed and where, tradition holds, the last Comanche raid into Texas passed. The Texas and Pacific Railroad reached the spot in 1881, and its position halfway between El Paso and Fort Worth gave the town its name. Sheep and Hereford cattle came first, then farmers drawn by windmill-pumped water—until the 1928 Permian Basin oil discovery made Midland the headquarters of a booming petroleum empire.
Site of Store of William Henry (Pete) Snyder
Snyder, TX
William Henry "Pete" Snyder — a Civil War veteran who had mined Colorado gold, built Kansas railroads, and hauled freight and buffalo hides — opened Snyder's first trading post here in 1878, its lumber freighted by ox-wagon from Fort Worth. The store supplied buffalo hunters living in dugouts along Deep Creek. After three years Snyder left the trade, laid out part of the original townsite, and sold lots before moving to Colorado City, where he died in 1916.
Midkiff
Midkiff, TX
Tucked where four West Texas county lines nearly meet, Midkiff began in the 1880s when railroads sold cheap land to lure settlers onto the ranching plains. Rancher John Rufus Midkiff opened a general store in 1902 and strung the area's only telephone line thirty miles to Midland along a barbed-wire fence. The sleepy ranch country roared to life after oil was struck in 1950, spawning an oil-camp town before the revived name of Midkiff took hold.
Fluvanna Mercantile Company
Fluvanna, TX
Founded in 1915 by D. A. Jones and John A. Stavely, the Fluvanna Mercantile Company was a classic West Texas general store, its shelves of clothing, groceries, hardware, millinery and patent medicines freighted in by the Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific Railroad. During the Depression cash gave way to barter as neighbors traded cream and eggs for "store-bought" supplies.