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BANKS
OF TEXAS
Buildings Worthy of Your Interest |
They
made their appearance in Texas towns after hotels and saloons, but before opera
houses and city halls. They occupied the most prominent corners of the town square
and their doors opened to both streets. Their architecture rivaled the county
courthouse and many were designed by the same architects. With marble counters
and bronze teller's cages, small town banks had the interior prestige of post
offices. Their exteriors were Greco-Roman temples with columns that reached to
the heavens. They were impregnable fortresses where the businessman kept his gold,
the tradesman kept his silver and where newsboys kept their copper pennies.
Then the unthinkable happened - they failed. | After
the Great Depression the architectural prestige of the bank was tarnished. Their
vaults were just full of paper (and forclosures) and their columns proved to be
hollow. In the 50s they modernized. They added automatic doors, and time/ temperature
signs that never worked properly. All across Texas these once noble buildings
were left vacant or became Mexican restaurants and antique stores. Only in the
downtowns of larger cities do they retain some of the dignity they once had. Here
is a celebration of bank architecture in Texas - from the big cities to towns
too small to have a drive-up window.
© John Troesser |
| "A
bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it
back when it begins to rain." - Robert Frost |
Texas
Bank Buildings - Images: |
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