First National Bank of Hallettsville

The bank's federal paper survives in collectors' catalogs. It was organized May 22, 1890 as the Lavaca County National Bank, chartered June 7 and renamed in May 1910. Friench Simpson was cashier from the first through 1914, and the presidents ran from Carey Shaw to Ferdinand Hillje to S. H. Simpson. Over its charter the bank issued 69,557 national bank notes worth $861,760. Circulation peaked at $60,000 in 1911, and total resources ranged from $105,004 in 1894 to $1,176,128 in 1929. The bank was still open when the register closed in 1935.

What the plaque says

First National Bank of Hallettsville Oldest bank in Lavaca County; has operated in this city block continuously since its establishment by Friench Simpson (1848-1923) and Carey Shaw (1854-1944), former employees of the J. H. Simpson Bank, Columbus. Shaw was also one of the original officers in the Texas Bankers Association, founded in 1885. In 1888, the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad was being built through Hallettsville. When S. A. A. P. construction gang reached here, the need for a local bank became apparent, and Simpson and Shaw organized "The Lavaca Bank" as a private institution, opening for business in southeast corner of the Kroschel General Merchandise Store, in this block. In 1890, they chartered the Lavaca County National Bank of Hallettsville, and took over entire Kroschel Building. In this bank, Shaw was president; T. Y. Hill, vice president; Friench Simpson, cashier; H. M. Tippett, assistant cashier; Joe Kahn and T. H. James, directors. Present name was adopted at bank's rechartering on May 21, 1910. Carey Shaw continued as a director until 1909; Friench Simpson until October 13, 1914. Succeeding generations of the Simpson family have also served in staff and management. New building, erected 1973, occupies the original site and adjacent lots. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lavaca County Courthouse — steps away
  A limestone Romanesque courthouse of 1897-99 on the square of a town founded by a widow trader, in a county seat that once printed the Socialist Party's state paper.
• Spoetzl Brewery — 13 mi
  The brewery a Czech and German railroad town started in a tin shed in 1909, run through Prohibition by a Bavarian who had brewed in Cairo, and then by his daughter.
• St. Mary's Church of the Assumption (Praha) — 17 mi
  The mother parish of the Czech settlements around Flatonia, a stone-fronted church of 1895 whose ceiling Gottfried Flury turned into a turquoise garden, with an August 15 feast since 1855.
• Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church (High Hill) — 19 mi
  A red brick Gothic Revival church of 1906 in a German farm settlement, where two San Antonio painters spent 1912 faking marble columns and stone vaults on wood.

More markers nearby

• 50th Anniversary of Battle of Galveston — steps away
• Hallettsville — steps away
• Sacred Heart Catholic Church — steps away
• General John W. Whitfield — 0.4 mi