N.E. Shands, Ex-Mayor of Mesquite, Dies at 81

Dallas Morning News
Monday, 15 July 1974

MESQUITE – Funeral services for N.E. Shands, 81, of 1112 Lakeshore, former mayor of Mesquite and chairman of the board of the First National Bank of Mesquite, will be held at 3:30 p.m. Monday in First United Methodist Church of Mesquite. Burial will be in Grove Hill Memorial Park in Dallas.

He died here Saturday.

Shands served as mayor of Mesquite from 1941 to 1947, having been a member of the city council from 1931 to 1941.

He began his career with the First National Bank in 1923 as an assistant cashier. He became president of the bank in 1932, a position he held for 29 years before being named chairman of the board in 1961.

Shands retired from the chairman position to assume the title of chairman emeritus 10 days before his death. During his banking career in Mesquite, the town’s population grew from 650 to more than 65,000, and the bank’s deposits grew from $275,000 to around $3 million.

Shands also managed the first electric light plant in Mesquite from 1918 to 1919 and served as the first trustee from Mesquite to the North Texas Municipal Water Distric, the government body which brought water from Lavon Lake to Mesquite and several other cities in the area.

In 1964 the Mesquite City Council honored Shands by naming Shands Park after his family and Shands Elementary School after his late wife, Elsie.

Shands was a member and past president of the Mesquite Chamber of Commerce. He was also a member of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce and served as treasurer and a director of Mesquite Savings and Loan Association.

Note: Ninus Eugene Shands