Industry State Bank

The bank's first name and its 1927 change both came from one Texas experiment, the deposit guaranty fund. After the Panic of 1907, when many banks restricted withdrawals, the Dallas Morning News campaigned for a depositors' guaranty law, and William Jennings Bryan urged a special session of the legislature to pass it. The law took effect in January 1910, and most state banks chose to join the fund. The bank failures that followed the depression of 1921 left it effectively insolvent by 1925, and the system was abolished in 1927, the year this bank dropped the word Guaranty.

What the plaque says

Industry State Bank ON FEBRUARY 11, 1911, A GROUP OF LOCAL CITIZENS TOOK THE FIRST STEPS IN FORMING A BANK TO BE CALLED FIRST GUARANTY STATE BANK OF INDUSTRY. DR. B.E. KNOLLE SERVED AS THE BANK'S FIRST PRESIDENT AND E. LINDEMANN SERVED AS FIRST VICE PRESIDENT. BY JUNE OF THAT YEAR, THE BANK OPENED FOR BUSINESS AT 1559 MAIN STREET. SHAREHOLDER AND CASHIER H.L. SCHULZE SERVED AS THE BANK'S ONLY SALARIED EMPLOYEE, WHILE HIS ASSISTANT H.H. BOELSCHE RECEIVED HOURLY PAY. IN SEPTEMBER 1919, SCHULZE'S DAUGHTER, THUSNELDE, WAS HIRED BY THE BANK AND SHE CONTINUED AS AN EMPLOYEE FOR 49 YEARS, UNTIL HER RETIREMENT IN 1968. WHEN H.L. SCHULZE DIED IN 1926, BOELSCHE WAS NAMED AS HIS REPLACEMENT. BOELSCHE MANAGED THE BANK UNTIL HIS DEATH IN 1956, WHEN ARNO KREBS BECAME THE BANK'S PRESIDENT. BECAUSE OF A CHANGE IN THE TEXAS BANKING STRUCTURE, THE BANK'S NAME WAS CHANGED TO INDUSTRY STATE BANK IN 1927. THE DEPRESSION CAUSED A DOWNTURN IN THE DEPOSITS AND INCOME OF INDUSTRY STATE BANK. WHILE DEPOSITS HAD PEAKED AT $206,000 IN 1924, THE LOW POINT FOR DEPOSITS OCCURRED AT THE END OF 1932 WHEN THEY FELL TO $95,000. DEPOSITS WOULD NOT AGAIN REACH THEIR 1924 LEVELS UNTIL 1937. A NEW BANK BUILDING WAS CONSTRUCTED AT THE MAIN STREET LOCATION IN 1957, AND BY 1962, THE BANK'S ASSETS HAD GROWN TO $1,500,000. THE BANK RELOCATED TO A NEW STRUCTURE IN 1973 AT THE CORNER OF HIGHWAY 159 AND HIGHWAY 109. INDUSTRY STATE BANK ACQUIRED ITS FIRST ADDITIONAL BANKING FACILITY, NEW ULM STATE BANK, IN 1989. THE INTEGRATION OF IMPROVED BANKING TECHNOLOGY THROUGHOUT ITS EXISTENCE HAS ENABLED INDUSTRY STATE BANK TO CONTINUE TO SERVE THE CITIZENS OF THE REGION WITH BANKING FACILITIES IN FIFTEEN COMMUNITIES. (2011)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 25 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 25 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 32 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 32 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.

More markers nearby

• Education in Industry — 0.3 mi
• Lindemann Store — 0.4 mi
• Industry — 0.4 mi
• Friedrich Ernst — 0.5 mi