First Mortage Company Building
a.k.a. First National Building
109 N. Oregon St., El Paso, TXThe First National Building in downtown El Paso is a large commercial structure reflecting the rapidly expanding economy of the city during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The fifteen-story building, a commercial-style skyscraper, was built to accommodate the growing financial institutions and professional interests in the 1920s. Through the years, the First National Building has retained its architectural and functional integrity, unlike many of the buildings surrounding it.
The design of the First National Building was influenced by the spatial needs of the First National Bank of El Paso and the First Mortgage Company and by the desire to integrate this new building with the existing American Bank Building to which it was to be connected. The First National Building was built, as influenced by these needs and desires, to provide office space for the growing city of El Paso, to provide additional space for the First National Bank, and to house the First Mortgage Company.
The First National Bank was chartered on May 26, 1881--the first national bank in El Paso--and saw steady growth until its doors were closed to depositors on September 4, 1931. By 1914 the bank had increased its capital sixteen-fold, was one of the five organizing banks of the Federal Reserve Bank of the eleventh district and had taken over the control of two local banks. One of these consolidations was with the American National Bank. The American National Bank Building, a seven-story second renaissance revival style structure built in 1905, was enlarged and occupied by the First National Bank in 1914. In 1920 the First National Bank consolidated with a third bank and additional space was needed.
Property adjoining the existing bank building on the Oregon Street side was purchased in conjunction with the First Mortgage Company. Barglebaugh & Whitson, an architectural firm based in Dallas, Tx., was commissioned to design the new building. Whitson (1889-1973) was educated at the University of Minnesota with an engineering mechanics degree. The design of the building was influenced by the desire to relate the new building to the existing bank building built ca. 1905.
Construction was begun on the new building--which was originally named the First Mortgage Building but was later known as the First National Building--on Monday, May 3, 1920, by J. C. Buchanan, an El Paso contractor. A fifteen-story, reinforced concrete skyscraper--the second skyscraper in El Paso and the tallest for many years--was built, connected by corridors to the existing, newly remodeled bank building. The construction cost including the site was $1,029,064.57. The new building had 54 feet of frontage on Oregon Street and 120 feet of frontage on Sheldon Street. The west half of the ground floor of the new building was specially equipped with large vaults for the bank. The First Mortgage Company occupied the second floor of the new building. There were 215 offices in the new building and a total of 415 offices in both buildings. These offices were "fitted up with the latest type of equipment", according to newspaper accounts at the time of construction, and finished in red gumwood. The lobby was finished in marble.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.