Through our subsidiaries, we conduct a full-service commercial banking business. Our banking centers are located primarily in Central, North Central, Southeast and West Texas. As of December 31, 2018, we had 73 financial centers across Texas, with eleven locations in Abilene, three locations in Weatherford, two locations in Cleburne, Conroe, San Angelo, Stephenville, and Granbury, and one location each in Acton, Albany, Aledo, Alvarado, Beaumont, Boyd, Bridgeport, Brock, Burleson, Cisco, Clyde, Cut and Shoot, Decatur, Eastland, El Campo, Fort Worth, Fulshear, Glen Rose, Grapevine, Hereford, Huntsville, Keller, Kingwood, Magnolia, Mauriceville, Merkel, Midlothian, Mineral Wells, Montgomery, Moran, New Waverly, Newton, Odessa, Orange, Palacios, Port Arthur, Ranger, Rising Star, Roby, Southlake, Spring, Sweetwater, Tomball, Trent, Trophy Club, Vidor, Waxahachie, Willis and Willow Park, all in Texas. On January 1, 2018, we completed our acquisition of Commercial Bancshares, Inc. and its wholly owned bank subsidiary, Commercial State Bank and, as a result, added branch locations in Kingwood, Fulshear, El Campo and Palacios.
Even though we operate in a growing number of Texas markets, we continue to believe that decisions are best made at the local level. Although we consolidated our bank charters into one charter in 2013, we continue to regionally manage our operations with local advisory boards of directors, local bank region presidents and local decision-makers. We have consolidated substantially all of the backroom operations, such as investment securities, accounting, check processing, technology and employee benefits, which improved our efficiency and freed management of our bank regions to concentrate on serving the banking needs of their local communities. On January 1, 2016, we combined our Huntsville and Conroe Regions and our Abilene, Sweetwater and Eastland Regions and established a Fort Worth Region that previously was a branch of our Weatherford Region. On January 1, 2018, we combined our Mineral Wells and Stephenville Regions.
In the past, we have chosen to keep our Company focused on the State of Texas, one of the nation’s largest, fastest-growing and most economically diverse states. With approximately 28.8 million residents, Texas has more people than any other state except California. The population of Texas grew 20.5% from 2007-2017 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many of the communities in which we operate are also experiencing positive growth as shown below:
Population Growth 2007-2017*
| | | | | | |
Bridgeport and Wise County | | 20.4% | | Weatherford, Willow Park, Aledo and Parker County | | 33.1% |
Fort Worth and Tarrant County | | 19.1% | | Stephenville and Erath County | | 14.8% |
Cleburne and Johnson County | | 13.4% | | Conroe and Montgomery County | | 41.7% |
Granbury and Hood County | | 15.9% | | *Source: U. S. Census Bureau | | |
These economies include dynamic centers of higher education, agriculture, wind energy and natural resources, retail, military, healthcare, tourism, retirement living, manufacturing and distribution.
We believe our community approach to doing business works best for us in small andmid-size markets, where we can play a prominent role in the economic, civic and cultural life of the community. Our goal is to serve these communities well and to experience growth as these markets continue to expand. In many instances, banking competition is less intense in smaller markets, making it easier for us to operate rationally and attract and retain high-caliber employees who prefer not only our community-banker concept but the high quality of life in smaller cities.
Over the years, we have grown in three ways: by growing organically, by opening new branch locations and by acquiring other banks. Since 1997, we have completed thirteen bank acquisitions and have increased our total assets from $1.57 billion to $7.73 billion as of December 31, 2018. We also established a trust and asset management company and a technology services company. First Financial Trust and Asset Management Company, National Association operates as a subsidiary of First Financial Bankshares, Inc. and First Technology Services, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of First Financial Bank, National Association, Abilene, Texas. Looking ahead, we intend to continue to grow organically by better serving the needs of our customers and putting them first in all of our decisions. We continually look for new branch locations, such as our newest branch in Spring, Texas which opened in January 2019, so we can provide more convenient service to our customers. We are actively pursuing acquisition opportunities by calling on banks that we are interested in possibly acquiring.
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