First National Bank of Bowie

Bowie began in tents. When the Fort Worth and Denver tracks came through in 1882, settlers who had lived in the area since the early 1860s moved to the construction camps, and businesses opened under canvas. The townsite was laid out on August 15, 1882, the post office was named for James Bowie, and residents voted to incorporate on July 22, 1884. By 1885 the town had 1,000 people, three hotels, a bank and a weekly paper. The Rock Island arrived in 1893, and by the mid-1920s Bowie had four banks, a hospital and a business college.

What the plaque says

The oldest financial institution in Montague County, this bank was chartered on March 10, 1890, eight years after the town of Bowie was created on the line of the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway. Beginning with an initial capital of $50,000, it was the town's only surviving bank by 1931. Maintaining a strong civic commitment, the bank has provided financial assistance to local charitable organizations and provides a gathering place for local community groups. It has been an important part of county history for over one hundred years. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stonewall Saloon Museum — 21 mi
  Saint Jo's first permanent building, a stone saloon of 1873 with rooms upstairs for trail drovers, in a town named, the story goes, as a joke on a founder who did not drink.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 27 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 29 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.

More markers nearby

• M. Johnson Poultry Ranch — 0.6 mi
• Montague County — 0.6 mi
• Montague Cemetery — 11 mi
• Forestburg — 17 mi