The original Schrage family mansion at 2006 Schrage Avenue was the home of Henry Schrage, his wife Carolina, and their six children. Henry was a naturalist who enjoyed beekeeping and birdwatching, joked that he was never stung because he knew all his bees by name, and was remembered as a quiet, kind, and gentle man. After returning each afternoon from Bank of Whiting, the family bank, he sat in his yard tending his hives, and even during World War I, when food coupons were issued, he bought sugar for his bees when flowers were too scarce to feed them. Henry, who died at age 88 on November 29, 1932, was Whiting's last Civil War veteran; he had fought at Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, and in Sherman's March to the Sea, and was buried in Oak Hill cemetery in Hammond on December 2 with a Legion military funeral. In the years after his death, the mansion was donated to Immaculate Conception Church and served for decades as the church rectory. Since 1895, five generations of the Schrage family have owned and managed their family bank, now known as Centier, while also maintaining a legacy of service to Whiting and preserving the historic home and green space for residents. Among Henry and Carolina Schrage's children was Walter E. Schrage, Sr. (1884 - 1941), the youngest of the six, who worked for many years as a teller and cashier in his father's bank and became a civic leader active in social clubs and on the school board, where one of his first projects was development of a new high school in the Whiting-Robertsdale area. In 1913 he was elected Mayor of Whiting on the Citizen's Ticket and served four consecutive terms, and in 1917 he became president of the bank when it was incorporated as a State Chartered Bank. Serving both as bank president and mayor, Walter, Sr., known as Whiting's Popular Mayor, focused on improving the quality of life in the city. In 1941, after the death of his father Walter Sr., Wally became president of the bank, and determined to keep it family owned and operated, he remodeled it in 1960 and renamed it First Bank of Whiting to meet the changing needs of its clients while continuing hometown banking for the community.