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Frost, Texas

Frost, Texas · What Endures

Part Two of 8

The Building

First posted on the Frost, Texas Facebook Page, 3 June 2026 · on Facebook

More than a century ago, when Frost was still finding its footing, the town got itself a bank built to outlast everyone who would ever walk through the door — Citizens State Bank, on the corner of Garitty and Front.

Citizens State Bank and its columned front, Trade Days, early 1920s. Frost Drug Co. next door.
Citizens State Bank and its columned front, Trade Days, early 1920s. Frost Drug Co. next door.Frost Heritage Center; photographed with the permission of Velma Ballew

You came in off Front Street, through a grand columned entrance. And just past the threshold, set into the floor tile by tile, was the bank's name and the year — laid by hand in mosaic, pressed permanently into the ground, so anyone walking in knew exactly where they stood and when it began.

What the floor still says, just inside the old entrance. March 2021.
What the floor still says, just inside the old entrance. March 2021.Photograph by Robert Phipps

Behind the lobby stood the vault. A heavy Mosler door, and above it a carved surround that spelled the bank's name in full, crowned by a lion's head looking down over the room. Built to guard what mattered most.

That floor is still there. So is the vault. So is the lion.

The vault, door open: the carved surround, the bank's name in gilt, and the engraved bolt work of the Mosler door.
The vault, door open: the carved surround, the bank's name in gilt, and the engraved bolt work of the Mosler door.Photograph by Robert Phipps

More than a hundred years of footsteps have worn most of the lettering away. But enough of it held to still be read — and what time left behind, just inside that entrance, is one word and a date:

The lion, still keeping watch over the bank's name.
The lion, still keeping watch over the bank's name.Photograph by Robert Phipps

ZENS 1909.

The tail end of “Citizens,” and the year it all started. Nobody chose that name. The floor handed it down. And it stuck.

“The Mosler Safe Co., Hamilton, O.,” in gilt on the door.
“The Mosler Safe Co., Hamilton, O.,” in gilt on the door.Photograph by Robert Phipps

The lion still keeps watch. The vault still stands. And the floor still says the year out loud, to anyone who looks down.

Some things are built to endure.

Sources

  • The bank, organized 1909: Mary Stevenson Warren, “Frost, Texas 1887–1987,” Navarro County Scroll, 1988.
  • The floor, the vault and the lion: seen in the building.