Annie McLean Moores Towler: Pioneer Female Banker in Texas (1860–1916)

Annie McLean Moores Towler, banker, clubwoman, and the first female president of a national bank in Texas, was born in Texas on April 7, 1860. She was the firstborn child of William Pinckney McLean and  Margarette Batte McLean. The 1870 U.S. census recorded the McLean family in Mount Pleasant, Titus County, Texas, where she attended school. Annie McLean married her next-door neighbor, Charles Washington Moores, in the early 1880s. They had no children. In 1883 her husband co-founded the first private bank in Mount Pleasant with J. T. McDonald, Thompson Morris, and C. C. Carr. After her husband died in 1888, Annie Moores served as a director and an officer with the bank, including as president of the private bank. The private bank became a national bank on March 28, 1892. When it formed, she was one of nine stockholders to serve on the bank's board of directors and would retain that directorship position until her death. C. C. Carr served as the first president for the rest of 1892 until the board elected her to that position on January 1, 1893. Thus Annie Moores became the first woman president of a national bank in Texas, and some sources credited her as the first in the United States.

The First National Bank of Mount Pleasant joined the Texas Bankers Association. The 1893 Banking Law Journal called her the “youngest bank president in the state of Texas.” Moores served as president of the First National Bank of Mount Pleasant from 1893 to 1899 and 1906 to 1915. She served as vice president from 1900 to 1905. The Texas Bankers Association named "Mrs. Annie M. Moores, Mt. Pleasant" to the 1900–01 standing Committee on Finance and Auditing. She became the first woman appointed to a statewide office within the Texas Bankers Association. With the death of her sister, Ida (wife of C. C. Carr), in 1900, Annie devoted the next few years to raising her nieces and nephew.

From the mid-1890s to 1907 Moores divided her time between two homes—she spent some of her time attending to business affairs in Mount Pleasant but also lived with her parents in Fort Worth, where she was active in social affairs and often mentioned in society news. In 1894 she attended and spoke at the first annual Texas Women's Press Association (see TEXAS PRESS WOMEN) meeting. She partly owned the Titus County Times, which ultimately became the Times Review of Mount Pleasant. In the late 1890s she served on the board of the Fort Worth Public Library Association. She was also active in the Woman’s Wednesday Club of Fort Worth.

In April 1898 Moores gave a well-received address at the opening evening of the first annual convention of Texas Women's Clubs (see TEXAS FEDERATION OF WOMEN’S CLUBS). Her speech on free public libraries contained historical references and quotes from great writers and reflected the breadth of her education. She had studied piano, voice, and elocution at the New England Conservatory; literature and sociology at Stanford University; Spanish in Mexico; and French in New Orleans and France.

In 1902 Annie Moores served as the secretary of the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs state secretary to the General Federation of Women's Clubs. She spoke often at the annual state and national meetings. The 1902 meeting in Los Angeles noted attendees would be "honored with addresses by several of the world's most noted women." Annie spoke on the topic of traveling libraries and traveling art collections.

In November 1902 the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission appointed Moores to the Board of Lady Managers for the St. Louis World's Fair. Named to the executive committee of the board, she was called “one of the most prominent members” of the board and described as "bright, witty and entertaining in the extreme." She served on the Committee for Foreign Relations and headed the committee to select a design for a pin for the Board of Lady Managers. She was one of the seven members of the twenty-four-member board named to a special committee to "create an interest in the exposition," which entailed attending and hosting numerous social events, such as the 500-guest reception for the Daughters of the American Revolution.

On June 20, 1907, Annie McLean Moores married John Robert Towler, a St. Louis merchant and banker, at “Birchmont” in North Conway, New Hampshire. She then lived in St. Louis and was active in civic affairs there but kept her business interests in Mount Pleasant.

In May 1913 women in the banking profession met for the first annual Texas Women's Bankers' Association, held in conjunction with the annual Texas Bankers Association meeting. The organization was formed at the Texas Bankers Association meeting held in San Antonio the previous year. Annie Towler was elected vice president of the new association. Newspapers called it the “only organization of women bankers in the United States” and the "only organization of its kind in the world." The two groups met at the Galvez hotel in Galveston, although in different rooms. Towler appeared on the program for that first meeting with a speech on “Personality in Business.” Members of both associations met for a reception and dance in the evening.

In 1914 Annie Towler received radium treatment for cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Treatment temporarily slowed the growth of the tumor. In October 1915 she was admitted to the hospital in St. Louis, where she ultimately died on February 19, 1916. She was buried in Fort Worth in the Mount Olivet Cemetery, the same cemetery as her parents. She left behind an estate valued at more than $200,000 in 1916 (equivalent to nearly $6 million in 2024), having increased her real estate and business holdings from what her first husband had left her.