- Business - Janesville Sesquicentennial
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- [Photograph; caption reads: First National Bank occupied
building at current location.]
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- Banks founded in city in 1800s
- The only locally owned bank remaining in Janesville - Rock
County National Bank - has roots that
- go back 130 years.
- The two other Janesville banks that started here - Marine
First National Bank and Bank of
- Wisconsin - were bought by larger banks over the last several
years. The Marine Corp., Milwaukee, bought the First National
Bank here, and Valley Bancorp, Appleton, bought Bank of Wisconsin.
- Rock County Bank was organized by articles dated Oct. 16,
1855, with capital of $50,000. It
- converted to a national bank in January 1865 with a capital
of $100,000.
- The list of first stockholders of Rock County Bank reads
like a "Who's Who" of early Janesville:
- John J. R. PEASE, J. B. CROSBY, Timothy JACKMAN,
Shubael W. SMITH, Andrew PALMER, Lewis E. STONE,
John KIMBALL, B. F. PIXLEY, John C. JENKINS,
J. Lang KIMBALL, Morris C. SMITH, Peter MYERS
and Jesse MILES. Most of them served as the bank's first
directors.
- JACKMAN was president, PALMER vice president
and CROSBY cashier.
- It began business in a frame building at the east end of
the Milwaukee Street Bridge.
- Bank of Wisconsin has gone through a couple of name changes.
It started as the Merchant's &
- Mechanic's Bank in 1857 - the first bank to attempt a combined
commercial and savings bank business - and later changed its
name to Merchant & Savings Bank.
- In 1884, the board of directors of Merchant's & Mechanic's
Bank decided they had given a new-
- fangled invention a sufficient test, and it just wasn't worth
the bank's time and money. So they decided to take out the telephone
that had been installed for a year. Somewhere along the line,
the bank's directors reconsidered, and now the bank has 120 phone
lines.
- In 1919, the Merchant & Savings Bank operated a shooting
gallery in its basement so its "vigilante
- committee" could develop "accuracy and proficiency
in the use of firearms."
- Central Bank of Wisconsin entered the national banking system
in September 1863 and took the
- title "First National Bank of Janesville." It was
the second bank in Wisconsin to organize under the national bank
act and had charter No. 83.
- Central Bank incorporated in 1855, but its history goes back
to the pocket of Joseph Bodwell
- DOE. Before Wisconsin enacted its free banking law,
banking was done here by merchants in their stores or by private
bankers and brokers.
- DOE carried on banking in his store, "writing
out his drafts and certificates of deposit and carrying
- home the assets of the bank in his pocket at night."
In fall of 1852, he had an office in the STEVENS House
and advertised himself as a "banker and exchange broker."
From January 1853, he operated under the name Central Bank of
Wisconsin.
- Central Bank had a couple of false starts to organize under
the free banking law, which was passed
- in 1852. (A Janesville man, William A. LAWRENCE, was
on the committee that reported that legislation and is believed
to have done the most to frame it and win its passage.) Central
Bank's first articles of association were dated Nov. 4, 1852.
Three months later, a supplementary certificate was filed to
increase its capital stock to $100,000. Named as incorporators
were DOE, William TALLMAN, A. Hyatt SMITH
and W. E. CHITTENDEN.
- CHITTENDEN, a New York City resident, had been expected
to furnish the capital for the
- securities on which circulating notes would be issued, but
he "failed before these securities were obtained, and the
enterprise was abandoned." DOE continued in business
as a private banker until 1855.
- Other banking enterprises in Janesville over the years include:
- McCREA, BELL & Co. opened a "banking
exchange and collection office" in Janesville about Jan.
1, 1851, in a small stone building on North Main Street.
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- William J. BELL and Augustus L. McCREA were
Milwaukee residents. With Edward L.
- DIMOCK, they incorporated Badger State Bank in 1853
and stopped their private banking business. BELL was the
bank's first president, and he was president of banks in Milwaukee,
Racine and Fond du Lac.
- "This bank was not able to withstand the financial storm
which swept over the country in the fall of
- 1857 and closed its doors on the morning of Sept. 26, 1857,"
according to a 1908 history of Rock County.
- The private banking firm of J. P. HOYT & Co. moved
into the Badger State office.
- Janesville City Bank was organized on Feb. 12, 1855, by Henry
and Arthur BUNSTER. The bank apparently flourished for
about a year, but after that its business declined rapidly, and
ownership and control changed hands several times. The bank evidently
went out of business in March 1857, and J. P. HOYT &
Co. moved in again.
- The Producer's Bank opened in 1857 but closed a year later.
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- "If Janesville could ever be called a 'boom' town, it
was such in the 'fifties,'" according to the 1908
- history. "Real estate speculation was very active, and
by 1857 prices were unreasonably high. The panic of 1857 was
followed by a shrinkage of values in real estate, and all commodities,
which has not been equaled in any subsequent financial crisis."
- In July 1856, Janesville had four banks with a combined capital
of $175,000, $522,000 in deposits
- and loans of $373,000. The next year, only three were operating,
and by July 5,1858, only two incorporated banks were left. Their
combined capital was $150,000; $115,000 was due depositors, and
outstanding loans amounted to $185,000.
- "Such a shrinkage of deposits could only have been endured
by banks doing business largely on
- their own cash capital. For 18 years following the fateful
year of 1857, there were but two commercial banks in Janesville."
- The Wisconsin Savings Bank was started as a private bank
by Edward McKEY and F. F. STEVENS in 1873.
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