Attorney and banker Charles Henry Pease (1873-1933) came to the Rio Grande Valley from Michigan in 1907 and, with the help of local businessmen, organized the Raymondville State Bank, which opened on March 5, 1907. Its first directors were E. B. Raymond, James B. Wells Jr., Robert J. Kleberg, William F. Sprague, William Kelly, Marcus Phillips, Charles H. Flato, Jr., S. L. Dworman, B. J. Frazier, and Ch. Pease, and Raymond was named president. The bank first operated at the Raymondville Lumber Company, where the lumber company safe was used as a vault and a pine shelf with a wooden grill served as the first teller window. After E. B. Raymond died in 1914, Charles H. Pease became president and served until 1923, during which time the bank moved into a new brick structure. Beginning as a small bank with total deposits of $10,000, it grew into an important area business and became the oldest banking institution in the lower Rio Grande Valley area of Willacy, Cameron, Hidalgo, and Starr Counties.