First National Bank of Trenton

A bank in a farm town follows its crop. The Handbook of Texas says Trenton's national bank opened in 1901 and was capitalized at $40,000 by 1914. In the early 1930s farmers there, influenced by P. E. Brown, began growing onions commercially, and shipments reached 158 carloads in 1933. By the early 1980s Trenton was the third-largest onion shipping point in North Texas. The town's population stood at 616 in the mid-1920s, fell to 490 by 1936 and rose to 634 by 1948.

What the plaque says

First National Bank of Trenton Founded in 1901 by John Donaghey, J. B. Robinson, and Y. B. Reed -- major officers for 33 years. Descendants still operate institution. In early days old-timers gathered here to discuss town events. Bank is still center of community news. At same location since founding; remodeled twice. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 12 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 25 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 25 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 26 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.

More markers nearby

• First Methodist Church of Trenton — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Trenton — steps away
• Burns Cemetery — 1.1 mi
• East Shady Grove Baptist Church — 4.4 mi