Burton State Bank

The building is older than its front. The National Register nomination for Burton's commercial district says it went up in 1906 as a one-story brick bank, three bays. About 1945 a local carpenter, Bonham Blackburn, gave it the plastered front and the zigzag band of black glass around the door. C. W. Homeyer, the bank's founder, started a lumber company in Burton in 1881; an 1898 fire destroyed its first building, the depot and a hotel. After the bank moved out in 1965 the old building was sold, donated to the Burton Heritage Society in 1979 and restored.

What the plaque says

Burton State Bank Chartered in 1906, the Burton State Bank was founded by C. W. Homeyer (1855-1932), who also served as first bank president. Members of the first Board of Directors included Thomas Watson, H. Knittel, Ed Schatz, I. N. Carmean, W. Bauer, and O. A. Schatz. The Burton State Bank was closed during the Great Depression of the 1930s for three days, was found solvent, and reopened. The bank was located at this site from 1906 until 1965, when it was moved to a new building. (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 9.7 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 10.0 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 17 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 24 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.

More markers nearby

• Burton Community — steps away
• Union Hill — 1.7 mi
• Leander H. McNelly — 2.5 mi
• Greenvine Baptist Church — 5.2 mi