Look up at seven stories of masonry raised in 1910 for the Rio Grande Valley Bank in El Paso, Texas. Built in 1910 for the Rio Grande Valley Bank and designed by Trost & Trost, this block of masonry has worn many names and tenants but keeps its steady presence. In 1925 it took the name Abdou Building after Sam Abdou bought it for $150,000, and that same year the American Trust and Saving Bank became a tenant — one of its directors, Charles Klink, was Abdou’s stepson.
By 1930 the El Paso Bank and the firm Leavell & Sherman had offices here, examples of the building’s sustained role in local commerce. You can trace those layers in the plain statement of its seven stories: a bank headquarters, a leased office building, a family connection woven into its leases, and a structure durable enough to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 24, 1980. Picture the transactions and names that passed through these doors -- Sam Abdou, Charles Klink, the El Paso Bank -- along the street this building has overlooked since 1910.