Citizens National Bank

The First National Bank of Crosbyton was one strand in Julian M. Bassett's web of companies. By 1910 Bassett was general manager of the Crosbyton-South Plains Railroad, vice president of the townsite company and a partner in the Crosbyton Company, and he served as president of the First National Bank and of the Crosbyton Telephone Company while owning the Bassett Land Company. Together these firms promoted Crosbyton and two more townsites, Lorenzo and Idalou. Crosbyton, the most successful of the three, reached 1,200 people by 1917.

What the plaque says

Citizens National Bank Site of Crosbyton's first bank. In 1909, First State Bank (soon named First National) opened in a new two-story concrete block and stone building, erected by C. B. Livestock Company. For bank, office use. In 1917, Citizens National Bank (est. 1905) purchased the property upon its move here from Emma, then county seat. December 14, 1929, the two banks merged. A new bank building was erected over the original basement and part of the old foundation in 1952. Present stockholders and directors are: R. A. Jefferies, Russell McCurdy, John Hughes, Leslie Mitchell, James C. Reed, John Brown. 1965

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum — steps away
  Crosbyton's museum of Blanco Canyon, built in 1958 as a copy of Hank Smith's Rock House, and the place to learn the canyon's 1871 fight between Mackenzie's cavalry and Quanah's Quahadi Comanche.
• Spur-Dickens County Museum — 26 mi
  Dickens County's museum on the main block of Spur, a town born on November 1, 1909, when the first train reached the land a New York syndicate was selling off from the Spur Ranch.
• Slaton Harvey House — 27 mi
  A 1912 Santa Fe Harvey House in the railroad town of Slaton, restored as a museum, event hall and five-room inn overlooking a working BNSF yard.
• Motley County Historical Museum — 34 mi
  Matador's museum in the 1928 Traweek Hospital, in the county seat a Scottish-owned ranch created by having its cowboys open one-day businesses to pass a state rule.

More markers nearby

• High Plains Pioneer Henry Clay Smith — steps away
• Crosby County — steps away
• Crosbyton — steps away
• Crosby County — steps away