First National Bank of Odessa
Odessa, Ector County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early banking in west Texas prior to federal and state regulations often consisted of handshakes and few contracts. Lending services were first offered in Odessa by B. Blankenship & Co., General Merchandise (established 1897). The city's first state charter was for Odessa National Bank, opening in 1902 and operating for one year. Citizens National Bank opened in 1906 and served the community for 27 years, merging with several others over the years, including Western National Bank (1907) and Odessa National Bank (1925-1930). Even though farming and ranching activity expanded in the area during the early 1900s, increasing the need for banking, the Panic of 1907 and the stock market crash of 1929 took a toll on banks nationwide and in Odessa. Despite the economic climate, the First National Bank of Odessa opened for business on April 2, 1932. It was able to operate during the Great Depression, offering banking services to the citizens of Odessa. Originally housed at the corner of Grant and 2nd streets, the bank moved to two other locations along Grant until a 15,800-square-foot building was completed in 1949. Boasting many modern conveniences, the bank featured 15 individual teller windows, 1,400 safety deposit boxes, a drive-up bank window and air conditioning for customers. One of the main attractions in the building was the 16-by-21-foot mural painted by the husband and wife team of Michael and Ethel Chomyk. The June 24, 1949, issue of the Odessa American celebrated the grand opening of the bank and its importance to the local economy. Over the decades, the bank has thrived and played an important role in the development of the region. (2018)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Banking in early Odessa began with handshakes and the lending counter of a general store, giving way to a string of short-lived state banks as farming and ranching expanded in the early 1900s. Against the odds of the Panic of 1907 and the 1929 crash, the First National Bank of Odessa opened on April 2, 1932, and managed to serve customers straight through the Great Depression. By 1949 it occupied a modern building with fifteen teller windows, a drive-up window, air conditioning, and a large mural by artists Michael and Ethel Chomyk, celebrated by the local paper as a milestone for the town's economy.
Why it matters
The bank's survival through the Depression tells the story of how frontier communities built the financial institutions that let oil-boom towns like Odessa endure and grow.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Michael Chomyk
- · Ethel Chomyk
Related events
- · Great Depression
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Odessa Telephone Exchange
Odessa, TX
Odessa's telephone exchange opened around 1897 in the early years of rural Texas telephony, when connecting far-flung ranches meant improvising with whatever ran across the land. Under pioneer rancher A. Quincy Cooper, service reached the countryside by stringing calls along barbed-wire fence lines. In a remarkable coincidence, Cooper's repair work on one such line in 1915 briefly broke into the first transcontinental telephone call between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, and the exchange was folded into Southwestern Bell in 1928.
Ector County Newspapers
Odessa, TX
Odessa's newspaper history began in 1895, when William C. 'Uncle Billy' Griffin launched Ector County's first paper, the Weekly News. A string of short-lived weeklies followed until the late 1920s, when the papers that would become the Odessa American took shape through a series of mergers. Consolidated in 1940 and sold several times, the American outlasted its many competitors and has been published from this site since 1951.
Earl George Rodman, Sr. and William Douglas Noel
Odessa, TX
Earl Rodman and William Noel came from very different starts in the oil business—Rodman a WWI veteran turned oilfield developer, Noel a University of Texas chemist who began as a roustabout—before joining forces in Odessa in 1946. Their Odessa Natural Gasoline Company sought to profitably use the natural gas that refineries were wasting, and their vision drew El Paso Products, Rexene, General Tire, and Shell to open plants in the town. Over a thirty-year partnership the two men built the petrochemical industry that transformed West Texas.
Odessa Petrochemical Complex
Odessa, TX
In 1946 four West Texas oilmen founded the Odessa Natural Gasoline Company to capture the natural gas being flared away as waste in the oil fields. That gas proved ideal for making butadiene and styrene—the building blocks of synthetic rubber—and through the 1950s the Odessa Chamber of Commerce helped attract a cluster of plants that grew into what was then the largest petrochemical complex in the world. Firms like Shell, Rexene, and El Paso Products anchored an industry that reshaped the town.