Get To Know Your Bank – Tuscola

First State Bank in Tuscola

In July 1912, the First State Bank of Tuscola opened for business. Seeking to attract as many local shareholders as possible, no one was allowed to invest more than $1,000 in the bank stock. When all was said and done, 15 stockholders bought in at $100 per share. At that time, customers made their deposits through grills of chicken wire and all posting was done by hand.

Through drought and the Great Depression, the tiny Texas bank, near Abilene, has survived and even grown. One of the milestones in the development of the bank occurred on November 30, 1931, when the First State Bank of Ovalo and the Security State Bank of Lawn were consolidated with the First State Bank of Tuscola. That consolidation increased the capital stock to $20,000 and the total combined deposits grew to $168,000.

Another important event in the institution’s 85-year history was a fire in 1956 that destroyed the downtown bank building. Even while the old bank building was smoldering and workmen were trying to break open the vault doors, the First State Bank had reopened for business three blocks down in temporary quarters in the front of a store. A newspaper account reported that “Home Style Cafe” signs were replaced with temporary bank signs.

Sheer grit and determination were not enough, however, and in 1966 following an examination by the State Banking Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the First State Bank of Tuscola was closed, making it the seventh bank failure in the country that year. A week later, an application was filed with the State Banking Board seeking a new charter, and the bank continued to operate under oral commitment. The new name of the bank was the First State Bank in Tuscola.

In 1979, the majority of stock in the bank was sold to Brownwood Savings and Loan executives, Robert H. Simmons and his father, Roy Simmons. Three years later, in 1982, a group of stockholders purchased controlling interest in the bank, where it remains today*.

* The stockholders who purchased the bank in 1982 owned and operated the bank until its sale to Texas National Bank in 2014. 

Source: Heritage (A publication of the Texas Historical Foundation), Spring 1997.