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Wichita Is Proud of Its Many Strong Financial Institutions
The first bank in Wichita was the Arkansas Valley Bank, instituted in 1870 by W. C. Woodman & Sons. Its career was meteoric and ended in disaster, following the death of the senior Woodman, after two or three years.
The second bank in Wichita was the First National Bank, which received its charter in 1872, and which failed soon after the panic of 1873. In the directorate of this bank were several of the pioneers of this section of the country, honest trustworthy men, but unfamiliar with the banking business including J. C. Fraker, W. P. and John Gossard and C. L. Danford of El Dorado, William Greiffenstien and James R. Mead, of Wichita. It failed in 1876, paying about 70 percent to its creditors.
The first savings bank was opened in Wichita in 1872 by Sol Kohn. The cashier of this bank for several years was A. A. Hyde. After a time the bank was conducted under the firm name of Kohn Brothers & Company and later was purchased by M. W. Levy in 1882 and organized as the Wichita National Bank. It suspended business in September, 1894, paying all its obligations in full.
The next bank to be organized was the Kansas State Bank, in 1880, with B. Lomard vice president; and L. D. Skinner, cashier. It suspended in May, 1894, with loss to its creditors. It is said that two pieces of real estate held by this bank and sold in the settlement of its business for $12,000 are now worth more than $200,000. They are the Greenfield corner and a part of the property recently vacated by the First National Bank.
William Mathewson pioneer and plainsman, was president of one of the numerous banks that sprang up and then failed after a short time during those early days. It was a savings bank and its failure was felt seriously by its depositors.
The Wichita National Bank was another financial institution that went to the wall. It was chartered in 1882 and at one time had a capital of $250,000. The directors were M. W. Levy, A. W. Oliver, S. T. Tuttle, N. F. Niederlander, Sol H. Kohn and Charles A. Walker, all prominent in Wichita affairs in those days. It was the successor of the Wichita State Bank and the bank of Kohn brothers & Company. A receiver was appointed for it in September, 1894. Depositors received 100 percent, together with five and three-fourths percent interest thereon.
A private bank, known as the Farmers and Merchants Bank, was opened in Wichita by Col. H. W. Lewis in 1876. In 1881 Col. Lewis organized the Kansas National Bank and took over the Citizens Bank and later the Sedgwick County Bank. This is the Kansas National Bank which was purchased in 1901 by C. Q. Chandler and others and which consolidated with the National Bank of Commerce two and a half years ago to form the First National Bank in Wichita, one of the greatest financial institutions in Kansas. At the time of the consolidation, the deposits in the Kansas National Bank were in excess of $10,000,000. The bank now occupies its own new ten-story building, completed at a cost of more than $1,000,000.
The present Fourth National Bank was organized in 1887, with Col. R. T. Bean, N. A. English, E. T. Brown, L. R. Cole Tarlton Embry, J. K. Beekman, W. B. Carlisle, O. D. Barnes, A. L. Houck, George C. Strong and W. R. Dulaney as directors. The history of this bank, while it has not always been as satisfactory as those connected with it could have wished, has reflected the history of Wichita since it started. Some of the men are still alive, but most of them are dead. This was the first bank in Wichita to erect a fine modern bank building, the banking rooms of which have since become inadequate to handle its business and it is now more than doubling its working space by the construction of a large addition and one more story. It has now one of the best bank buildings in the state.
This is the bank which effected a consolidation with the State Savings & Mercantile Bank recently, making it one of the strongest banks in Kansas.
In 1902 the National Bank of Wichita was organized by George W. Robinson, Judge Grainger, E. T. Battin, S. B. Amidon, C. W. Brown, J. N. Haymaker, D. E. Dunne, Dan Breese, B. L. Eaton, J. W. Metz and F. C. Sheldon. It lasted five years and was swallowed up by the Fourth National.
Then came the time when Wichita began to grow rapidly and banks multiplied with the development of the town. Most of these banks are still in existence and doing their part in supplying the sinews of business and commerce. They are, the Commerical Bank, founded in 1892, the American State Bank, founded in 1900; the State Savings and Mercantile Bank, 1902; the Citizens State Bank, 1902; the Wichita State Bank, 1908; the Security State Bank, 1910; the Merchants Reserve State Bank, 1914; the Southwest State Bank, 1915; the Fidelity State Bank, 1917; the Central Bank, later nationalized and now known as the Union National Bank; the Union Stockyards National Bank; the Sunflower State Bank, 1918; the People's State Bank, 1917; the Farmers State Bank, 1919; the North End State Bank, 1917; the Stockyards State Bank, 1917; the Ranchman's State Bank, 1918; the Guarantee State Bank, 1918; the Exchange State Bank, 1919; and the Kansas State Bank, 1921.
In addition, Wichita has the First Trust Company, the Guarantee Title and Trust Company, with the only live Clearing House Association in Kansas.
The experienced banker looking over the above list of banks, in a city with a population of 85,000, would say at once that there are too many banks for the size of the city. There are a few bankers in the city who would disagree with him. As a matter of fact there have been two bank mergers already this year and more are talked of. One of these mergers or consolidations was that in which the Sunflower State bank and the Ranchman's State bank were consolidated with the Wichita State bank, making it one of the strongest state banks in the city. The other was the merger of the State Savings and Mercantile bank with the Fourth National, greatly to the benefit of both.
Wichita now has some of the best banks and bankers in Kansas. They not only know the banking business, but they are the very backbone of every public enterprise and the source from which comes the money to conduct the business of the city, move the grain and livestock and oil of a great and rich territory which surrounds it, and supplies much of the cash for the construction of the homes and business buildings of the city.
These banks now have a capital surplus and undivided profits of $6,000,000, with deposits running well in excess of $50,000,000.
