Pflugerville Banks

Pflugerville Banks

Written by Pamela Stephenson Tuesday, 18 March 2008

When the nation had its banking crisis in 1933, more than 4,000 banks closed in two months and Pflugerville felt the affect. During the Great Depression, Farmers Bank, the city’s first bank and the only bank in rural Travis County, closed Jan. 6, 1933.

However, the bank’s founders were able to provide evidence of sufficient capital to file for a new charter to re-open.

The next day the bank re-opened as First State Bank of Pflugerville.

Chartered in 1906, the Farmers Bank’s original building was a wooden structure. After burning that same year, a two-story brick building was built. That building is still located at the corner of Main and Railroad streets and is now home to the Old Prague Market and E.V. Hernandez Photography.

From 1957 until 1982, John Pfluger of Pfluger Realty, served in several capacities at the First State Bank, including president from 1975 until 1982.

He recalled that the “bank was a community bank that took care of the community. It was the only thing in town and was there for the community during the lean years, the droughts, as well as the good times.”

Pfluger also said the bank “had tremendous growth in the 1970s, growing more than 30 percent to 35 percent a year.”

In 1957, when Pfluger started at the bank, he said it had about $330,000 in capital deposits. By 1982, he reported more than $34 million. Pfluger remembered the personal service offered to clients.

“I loaned more money without signed notes than I did with signed notes. We were blessed with good customers,” he said.

“You know, we didn’t have to have personalized checks,” said Gladys Pfluger, whose father, Fritz Pfluger, was one of the co-founders of the bank.

Personalized checks were unheard of before the bank went to computers in the 1980s. Instead, they had “counter checks.” At the time, bank services included checking and savings accounts, loans and Certificates of Deposit, often called CDs. The bank also bought government bonds, or treasury bills, when requested by customers.

John Pfluger remembered two bank robberies during his tenure at the bank. On one occasion, robbers broke in and emptied the safe deposit boxes in the vault. A second incident occurred in the 1960s when a man shot his gun in the bank and put three employees in the vault. Fortunately, the vault could be opened from the inside. Pfluger laughs when he reported that at the time of the robbery, officers from the Sheriff’s Department and the Highway Patrol were sitting at Lively’s Café, just behind the bank. The robbers were never caught.

In the 1960s and 70s, the early days of the newly incorporated City of Pflugerville, the city was provided free use of an empty room on the north end of the First State Bank building for their monthly meetings. During Trades Day and other celebrations, guinea hens were thrown off the roof of the bank. Each hen was worth $1 to $5 to those who caught them.

From the single bank that served the small agricultural community, almost a dozen banks now serve the growing population of Pflugerville.

Bank Timeline

• 1906 - Farmers State Bank chartered by seven families
• June 1906 - Wooden bank structure burns
• 1907 - New two-story brick bank building constructed
• 1917 - Bank damaged by fire and remodeled
• Jan. 6 1933 - Farmers Bank closes
• Jan. 7 1933 - Bank reopens under new charter – First State Bank of Pflugerville
• 1973 - New building constructed at Main and First streets
• 1978 - Bank building expanded on east side
• 1970s - Branch bank built on Pecan Street next to Green and Growing Nursery
• 1984 - Bank was sold to a group out of Beaumont
• 1980s - Branch bank built on Pecan Street near Heatherwilde Boulevard
• 1989 - Hibernia purchases the bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and changes the bank’s name
• 1994 - Comerica purchases the bank from Hibernia