Old Bonner Bank Building
Rusk, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built 1865 by C.Chaffee, a New Orleans promoter-cotton buyer. Served 1868-1883 as law office of S.A Wilson, member of 5-man commission to codify Texas law under Constitution of 1876; Later judge in State Court of Appeals. In this building, 1884-1892, leading East Texas attorney and Tyler banker F.W. Bonner had the first bank in Cherokee county, serving New Birmingham. Retained Bonner Building name through school and other occupancies. RTHL 1968
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Raised in 1865 by a New Orleans cotton promoter, this Rusk building soon housed the law office of S. A. Wilson, who helped codify Texas law under the 1876 constitution before rising to the state appeals bench. In the 1880s attorney and Tyler banker F. W. Bonner opened Cherokee County's first bank here, serving the short-lived industrial boomtown of New Birmingham. The Bonner name stuck through later uses as a school and more.
Why it matters
From codifying Reconstruction-era law to launching a county's first bank, the building witnessed the legal and financial scaffolding that a maturing Texas needed after the Civil War.
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Related people
- · S. A. Wilson
- · F. W. Bonner
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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In 1898 Cherokee County natives Wyatt Thomas Norman and William Harrison Shook opened a law office on the Rusk courthouse square, taking on partner George Gibson in 1918 and later spreading to a Jacksonville branch. Through more than a century the practice kept the Norman name and represented both ordinary individuals and national corporations. It became a training ground for judges, politicians, and civic leaders at every level of Texas government.
Cherokee County Courthouse
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Built in 1940–41 with help from the federal Works Progress Administration, this is the fourth courthouse to serve Cherokee County. Designed by the firm of Gill & Bennett, its Moderne form rises in native red and white limestone, with a central block flanked by wings and adorned with sleek Art Deco grillwork. It stands as a Depression-era public-works landmark at the county seat of Rusk.
Cherokee County C.S.A.
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During the Civil War, Cherokee County became a busy Confederate manufacturing and supply hub, with shops making wagons and harnesses, a gun factory turning out rifles and pistols, iron works casting tools, and salt and commissary works feeding the war effort. It also held Union prisoners and drilled raw recruits at a camp of instruction. Some two thousand county men served the Confederacy, among them Brigadier General Joseph L. Hogg, who died in Mississippi in 1862.
The Rusk Cherokeean
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