First National Bank of Bastrop

George Washington Jones, whose law office stood here, was a Unionist and a Stephen A. Douglas man who joined the Confederate army as a private, calling it "a foolish undertaking" but promising to fight it out with his people. He rose to colonel of the Seventeenth Texas Infantry. In 1866 he was elected lieutenant governor on James W. Throckmorton's ticket with 48,908 of 57,622 votes. On July 30, 1867, Gen. Philip H. Sheridan removed him from office as an "impediment to reconstruction." Sayers practiced law with him for ten years.

What the plaque says

First National Bank of Bastrop First bank in county. In early days, money for safekeeping was placed with mercantile firms. Organized as "Bank of Bastrop County", in March 1889; became a national bank on Aug. 10, 1889. Presidents of this bank have been J. C. Buchanan, B. D. Orgain, W. A. McCord, W. B. Ransome, Earl C. Erhard and Gates B. Mack. Present structure built 1950, is on site of 1860's law office of Geo. W. Jones and J. D. Sayers; each served Texas as Lieutenant Governor and U.S. Congressman. Sayers was Governor, 1899-1903. Noted trading store of John Swan Johnson also stood here. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bastrop State Park — 2.0 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 20 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.
• McKinney Falls State Park — 24 mi
  Limestone falls on Onion Creek inside Austin, where people camped under a rock overhang for thousands of years and a financier of the Texas Revolution built his stone ranch house.
• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 26 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.

More markers nearby

• Bastrop Methodist Church — steps away
• Baron de Bastrop Monument — steps away
• Home Town of Texas Confederate Major Joseph D. Sayers — 0.2 mi
• Captain James Burleson — 0.2 mi