First National Bank was the oldest bank in Delta County. It was founded in 1889 as a private firm operating in a grocery store, was chartered as a national bank in 1891, and erected this building in 1909. Guaranty State Bank merged with First National in 1925, and the bank continued to grow. Its founder, Wm. J. McDonald (1844 - 1926), left a great fortune at his death to establish the McDonald Observatory, an astronomical observatory of the first order, in West Texas.