Marion began in the 1870s as a marketing and shipping point on the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio rail line and grew steadily into an important commercial center in the early twentieth century. A cotton gin opened in 1904, followed soon by an electric plant and a telephone company. Amid that growth, Marion State Bank received a charter on October 26, 1906. H.D. Dreyer was its first president, with Dr. Louis Hirschfeld as vice president and Henry Wimmer as cashier and secretary, and all three served as directors alongside L. Kuehler, W.J. Schneider, and Arlon B. Davis. The bank first operated in the rear of the first floor of the H.D. Dreyer building, which also housed the Waldorf Club, a local saloon. In 1910 it purchased the property and moved to the front part of the building, remaining there until relocating to new facilities in 1987. Among the first state-chartered banks in Texas, it has remained one of the state's oldest community-based financial institutions, serving Marion and the nearby communities of Zuehl, New Berlin, and Santa Clara, paying regular dividends even during the Great Depression, and playing a key role in the area's development as a continuing hometown institution.