First home of the Kansas City Savings Association, forerunner of Commerce Bank, over the Magnolia Saloon.
That said, Evans adds, “there are great
opportunities in every economic cycle.
Having learned the lessons of the ’80s,
we were the first public company to say
‘thanks but no thanks’ to TARP. Instead
of taking bailout money, we got out there
to prospect. We knew that there would
be tremendous opportunities for deposit
growth in the recession.”
And so it has been for Frost from the
start. The nation’s bloodiest trial, the Civil
War, was over less than three years when
Colonel Frost opened his shop. Texas was
in the grip of a drought and still two years
from being readmitted to the Union, the last
of the former Confederate states to do so. In
contrast, Texas was well ahead in economic
recovery. The land and cattle and rail booms
were building; the transcontinental railroad
would be completed the next year.
Frost had many careers in his lifetime:
a Latin instructor, a Confederate army
18 Financial History | Spring/Summer 2011 | www.MoAF.org
officer, a lawyer, a Texas Ranger, a postmaster, an auctioneer, the owner of a
general store and finally, a banker. Joseph
Hardin Frost, known as “Mr. Joe” and
second son of Colonel Frost, steered the
bank through the Depression and World
War II. He was named chairman of the
board in 1948.
When the Federal Reserve System was
established, Frost National Bank was a
founding member of the Reserve Bank of