Western National Bank of Bryan

When the bank at Villa Maria and Forestwood opened in 1982, there was not only a full page ad here but a full section of advertisement articles and other stuff. From The Eagle, I just cleaned it up a bit. Western National Bank (not to be confused with others sharing the name--there was another one in Abbeville, Louisiana) was established in 1981 as a bank based out of Bryan, funded by local investors with the office and only branch to be at Forestwood Drive and West Villa Maria Road in Bryan (1001 W. Villa Maria Road), and opening in November 1982. However, by 1987, with banks failing across the state (in part due to the oil crash, in part the S&L crisis), Western, now in deep financial trouble, proposed merging with United Citizens Bank, a local bank operation that was formed after local bank UnitedBank bought the insolvent Citizens Bank of Bryan.

The combined bank would be headquartered at the Western National Bank site, with the site anticipated to be a more happening part of town with the construction of what would be State Highway 47. In October 1987, however, Western National Bank was declared insolvent by the FDIC but quickly reopened a day later as "Villa Maria Bank", a branch of First State Bank of Caldwell (which paid the FDIC $5000 to acquire the accounts) and in November 1987 Villa Maria Bank officially opened after its soft reopening a few weeks prior, just five years after Western National Bank opened. By 1990, First State Bank also had a branch off Harvey Road under its own name (at 701 Harvey Road) and Villa Maria Bank soon changed names to be more like its parent company. While the bank always had a metal roof from day one, at some point during First State Bank's ownership (by 1995), the bank received a small addition to the right side of the building (on the western part).

In 1996, First State Bank was acquired by First American Bank, which used to be called UnitedBank (guess that merger came through after all). Like other First American Bank branches (which we have previously covered) it was converted to Citibank in 2005 after another merger, sold to BB&T in 2014, and converted to Truist after BB&T after they merged in 2022. Except, they didn't, as BB&T closed this branch sometime around 2018. Prior to or during renovations into office space, in late May 2019, a fire burned through the building, creating visible damage on the outside and causing a partial roof collapse. As a result, the building was simply torn down (along with its parking lots) and not replaced.

A "gas station/deli" has been promised per the sign out front but nothing yet, and who knows what that entails (the lot's big enough for a decent gas station, maybe TXB or perhaps we may be lucky and get a QuikTrip...or just a decent fast food co-brand). In any case, one of the things that stuck out to me was how UnitedBank believed that the western part of Bryan would be a bigger thing than it was. Even though State Highway 47 was complete by the late 1990s it still took a long time for that to get anywhere off the ground. Even in much of the 2000s that was still largely open territory and mostly industrial, even when Traditions was starting to build up. (Then again, a lot of the Traditions stuff never really panned out either).