The First National Bank of Corsicana

Corsicana banking started a little before the plaque's founders. A history on the Navarro County site says a private bank, Adams and Leonard, opened around 1870 at Fourth Avenue and Beaton Street. Garitty, Huey and Company followed in September 1871 and became a national bank on July 1, 1886. James Garitty presided until his death in 1925. The bank took in Central State Bank in 1927 and Corsicana National Bank in 1931, passed one million dollars in capital and surplus on January 14, 1930, and observed the national banking holiday in March 1933.

What the plaque says

The First National Bank of Corsicana An institution whose history reflects rise of a landmark city. Corsicana was founded about 1850. In 1871, when the Houston & Texas Central gave the town rail connections with national commerce, two former H. & T. C. employees established this bank as a private concern. The men were Capt. James Garitty (1842-1925), experienced as a bank clerk, and Joseph Huey (1827-1904), a tin and hardware dealer. The firm was called Garitty, Huey & Company, and served cotton growers as well as ranchers and cowboys driving cattle to the railroad. By 1886 their business had expanded so greatly that they incorporated and obtained a charter for the First National Bank of Corsicana, with capital of $125,000 and surplus of $75,000. Drilling for a new municipal water well in 1894 brought first major oil and gas discovery in Texas. The pioneer field developed first use in the state of natural gas in lighting and heating, first use of petroleum for railroad locomotives, first use of oil in highway surfacing. Texas' first refinery was built in Corsicana. During and after the years of petroleum industry development, the city gained other business and cultural advantages, with this bank giving aid and leadership in many phases of civic progress. (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 0.3 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 20 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 30 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• Early Texas Natural Gas Pipelines — steps away
• Corsicana City Jail of 1908 — steps away
• Samuel Wistar Johnson, M. D. — steps away
• Corsicana Public Library — steps away