Commercial National Bank

Commercial National Bank received national charter 4866 on February 20, 1893, a month after organizing on January 17. Its presidents changed often: Dr. Luther Bunyan Creath in 1893 and 1894, then A. G. Kennedy, D. C. Stone, and John W. Flournoy, who held the post from 1899 through 1915. John W. Cook, R. J. Cook and J. R. Scott followed. Resources were lowest at $83,240 in 1893 and peaked at $1,070,566 in 1930. Circulation hit $128,676 in 1921. Its 1882, 1902 and 1929 notes total 67,818 pieces, worth $842,590 at issue.

What the plaque says

Commercial National Bank The Commercial National Bank of Beeville traces its history to January 1893 when several prominent citizens met to organize a financial institution. elected as officers were Dr. L.B. Creath, A.G. Kennedy, John I. Clare, and D.C. Stone. The bank opened in May 1893 with a capital stock of $50,000. Housed on the northwest corner of the courthouse square in a two-story brick edifice, the bank was successful from the beginning. Profits were posted from it first quarter of business, and by 1895 stockholders received a dividend of four percent. The bank building was remodeled in the 1930's and was modernized and expanded in the 1950s. a new banking facility was added south of the original structures in 1965 and included drive-in teller windows. A banking facility was added at Chase Field Naval Air Station in 1967. The main bank building added more space and drive-in windows in 1976 and 1982. A branch bank was added in 1985 at College North Shopping Center, and in 1991 the First State Bank of Mathis was established as a branch bank. Many prominent citizens have been associated with the bank, including state legislators. The bank continues to support and serve the community. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Corpus Christi State Park — 25 mi
  A lake park in the South Texas brush country above Mathis, on a reservoir of the Nueces, with a Civilian Conservation Corps refectory and more than 200 bird species.
• Zaragoza Birthplace State Historic Site — 28 mi
  A rebuilt stone house beside La Bahía marking where Ignacio Seguín Zaragoza, the general of the Battle of Puebla and Cinco de Mayo, was born in 1829.
• Presidio La Bahía — 28 mi
  A Spanish fort on its third site since 1749, held in turn by filibusters, insurgents and Fannin's Fort Defiance, rebuilt in stone in the 1960s around a chapel that never fell.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 28 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

• Beeville on the Poesta — steps away
• The Railroad in Bee County — steps away
• Barnard Elliott Bee, Sr. — steps away
• James Lincoln de la Mothe Borglum — 0.2 mi