Brownson's Bank

Behind the plaque is a paper trail. Victoria National Bank was organized on March 31, 1913, and chartered that April, with the same management as the First National Bank it replaced. Until 1935 it issued $7,051,600 in national bank notes, about 777,000 bills. Welders held the president's chair in every year but one, beginning with James F. Welder Sr. Brownson's own career ran wider than Victoria. Born in Illinois in 1836, he served with Terry's Texas Rangers in the 8th Texas Cavalry, and in 1883 and 1884 he presided over Traders National Bank in San Antonio.

What the plaque says

Brownson's Bank John Milton Brownson (1836-1906), a Confederate veteran of the Civil War who grew up in nearby DeWitt County, moved to Victoria in 1866 and opened a grocery store. In 1867 he founded Brownson's Bank, the first banking establishment in Victoria. Located in a frame building on the west side of Main Street between Constitution and Santa Rosa Streets, it became known as Brownson and Company in 1876. Brownson entered into a partnership with Eugene Sibley in 1882 to form Brownson and Sibley. In December 1889 they joined with 22 additional investors and organized the First National Bank of Victoria. Brownson served as first president of the new bank, which opened with a capital stock of $150,000. It was reorganized in 1913 as the Victoria National Bank. The following year, the institution relocated to the Welder Building at this site. The institution became the First Victoria National Bank in 1963. An important element of Victoria's business and economic history, this bank has included among its directors, officers and staff some of the area's most influential citizens. It continues to serve its customers and support numerous civic and charitable endeavors in the community. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• De León Plaza — steps away
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 1.8 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 25 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• De Leon Plaza — steps away
• Victor M. Rose — steps away
• Victoria County — steps away
• Victoria County Honor Roll — steps away