Midland National Bank

The bank's later decades rode the oil price. After the Arab oil embargo, Midland boomed again: tens of thousands of people moved in, several downtown blocks were cleared for federal buildings and high-rise offices, and by 1983 the city held an estimated 92,000 people. Builders could not keep up, and when oil reached $40 a barrel in 1981 newcomers were living in tents, cars and trailers. The boom ended abruptly in 1982, when prices tumbled and the drilling rig count fell by half. The shock led three Midland banks to fail in 1983.

What the plaque says

Midland National Bank Organized on August 22, 1902, in Odessa as Odessa National Bank, this institution began with an initial capital of $25, 000. Less than one year later the bank's shareholders voted to relocate to Midland and the institution became Midland National Bank. The bank set up offices in the Llano hotel building at the corner of Wall and Main Street. Early leadership for the institution was provided by such prominent people as D.W. Brunson, Andrew Fasken, and Ralph Barron. With its business largely dependent upon the cattle industry, the bank served its customers until a prolonged drought caused an economic crisis which led to its reorganization in 1923. By 1927 the oil industry had become the major business of the bank. Throughout the subsequent "boom and bust" years of the oil business, the bank has continued operations. A new three-story bank building was erected in 1953 on the corner of Texas and Big Spring, and a nine-story tower was added four years after. In a continued period of growth, the bank merged with the Bank of the Southwest in 1968. A new fourteen-story building was completed at this site in 1976. In 1983 the bank's name was changed to First City National Bank of Midland. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bush Family Home State Historic Site — 0.6 mi
  The small 1939 frame house on West Ohio Avenue where George and Barbara Bush raised their young family in Midland's 1950s oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site.
• Museum of the Southwest — 0.8 mi
  Midland's art and science museum in the 1937 house of oilman Fred Turner and his wife Juliette, with added galleries, a children's museum and a planetarium on the grounds.
• Permian Basin Petroleum Museum — 1.9 mi
  Midland's museum of the oil basin it sits on, from a restored diorama of the Permian reef to a 40-acre yard of drilling rigs and Jim Hall's Chaparral race cars.
• Midland Army Air Field Museum — 8.8 mi
  A hangar museum at Midland's airport, run by Commemorative Air Force volunteers, telling how a 1927 grass field became the bombardier college that graduated 6,627 officers in World War II.

More markers nearby

• Midland County — 0.3 mi
• Staked Plains — 0.3 mi
• Former Site of Midland National Bank — 0.3 mi
• Site of Midland County's First Bank — 0.4 mi