Merchants and Planters National Bank

The bank outlived its tree. Its original building came down in 1912 and a new one rose on the same corner, and by 1917 resources topped four million dollars. Tom Randolph, who had been cashier in 1872, was president, and C. B. Dorchester, once the teller, was cashier; the bank's own anniversary listing credits them with forty-five and forty-two years as directors. The first national charter was extended twenty years in 1904. A drive-in facility opened on the north side in 1979, on the ground where the Binkley Hotel once stood.

What the plaque says

Merchants and Planters National Bank One of the oldest banks in North Texas. Replaced Sherman's "Pecan Tree Bank"; for 22 years traders hung saddlebags filled with gold on tree's branches. Bank was founded in 1872 with $150,000 capital when city was 26 years old. Promoted growth of Sherman and was hub of North Texas area and Indian Territory, serving ranchers, farmers, traders. Became national bank in 1884. First president was C. C. Binkley; first directors, J. P. Dumas, Silas Hare, Sr., J. M. Lindsay, J. H. Slater, G. V. Winkle, C. A. Andrews. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 8.8 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.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 11 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Eisenhower State Park — 12 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Site of Old Sherman Opera House — steps away
• Eleventh Texas Cavalry — steps away
• Sherman Riot of 1930 — steps away
• Peter W. Grayson — steps away