Long before it was swept away by the Ohio River floods, there was a metal grate in the floor of Illinois‘ first bank building.
It was actually just a frame house in Old Shawneetown, whose owner John Marshall, who had made some money in the nearby salt mines, devoted a room to banking.
“There was a grate in the floor and the money (gold, silver, bills) was lowered into a barrel in the basement,” said Tamara Briddick of the Gallatin County Historical Society. “And down there there was a guard who often slept on top of the barrel.”
Even as one of the newest American settlements west of the Ohio River, the place was known as Old Shawneetown because it had long been a population center of Shawnee Indians. The city’s modern history dates back to the late 18th century, when the federal government established it as the headquarters of a land office that would help solidify the new nation’s holdings in what was then called the Northwest Territory.
A few years later, Illinois became a state and the bustling river port of Shawneetown became home to the state’s first bank in 1821.
“We basically created the state,” Briddick said. “That’s my personal opinion, but it all started here.”
The Old Shawneetown Bank State Historic Site May 31, 2024, in Old Shawneetown, Illinois. Considered the oldest bank building in the state, the Old Shawneetown Bank was recently named one of Illinois’ Most Endangered Historic Landmarks in 2024 by Landmarks Illinois. (Paul Eisenberg/Southtown Journal)
The imposing structure, erected in 1838, which housed the state’s first bank, now stands almost alone in a location most residents abandoned more than 80 years ago. But it is one of the properties at the center of legislation awaiting Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature. The bill would establish a designated State Historic Preservation Board within the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, charged with carefully examining the state’s historic properties.
Among those happy to see the move is Quinn Adamowski of Landmarks Illinois. The 56 sites in Illinois designated State Historic Sites “are in varying condition” thanks to a long-standing lack of resources available to the IDNR, particularly for recreational and educational purposes, he said. While some of the sites have had budget increases over the past five or six years, “the DNR is catching up on deferred maintenance across the board,” he said.
In Old Shawneetown, deferred care is nothing new. Lewis and Clark, the eastern link of one of the first highways connecting the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, had visited Old Shawneetown on their way to their famous western exploration. Abraham Lincoln visited him several times as a lawyer and political candidate. At least one hero of the American Revolution made Shawneetown a destination. But today the city is mostly famous for what used to be there.
The first incarnation of the First State Bank of Illinois lasted a couple of years, failed, and then was reborn as the State Bank of Illinois in the 1830s, with greater assets and plans. In 1838, a three-story brick building fronted by five massive Doric columns opened one block west of Main Street, on the dry side of the Shawneetown levee.
One of the first orders of business at the impressive new bank was consideration of proposals submitted by a contingent from the nascent city on the southwest corner of Lake Michigan. The correspondence between the money men of Shawneetown and the city fathers of Chicago has reached the sparsely populated upper echelon of banking legends.
As the story goes, Shawneetown rejected Chicago’s loan request.
“Local lore is that we turned them away because they were too far from Shawneetown to get anywhere,” Briddick said.
A letter dated July 5, 1838 and addressed to Chicago Mayor Buckner Stith Morris, located at the Gallatin County Historical Society, informs Chicago leaders that their loan application was rejected by the Bank of Illinois in Shawneetown . “The high demand for money in this section of the state…renders that this institution does not have the power to grant the loan your city requested,” the letter states. (Gallatin County Historical Society)
But the truth is closer to the banking standards of any era. According to a letter to Chicago Mayor Buckner Stith Morris dated July 5, 1838, archived at the Gallatin County Historical Society, Chicago leaders first asked Shawneetown bankers to establish a branch there and, in Failing that, they would lend the new city a few thousand dollars. Both applications were rejected, in part due to Chicago’s distance from the commercial superhighway of the time: the Ohio River.
“We felt like it was a bad deal to lend them money, because how would we get our money back?” Briddick said. “They were too far from the river.”
Fortunes in Shawneetown rose and fell almost as fast as river levels in Ohio. The “five-column bank” opened and closed five times.
In 1853, Governor Joel Matteson, the south suburban village’s namesake, purchased the bank for $15,000, but less than 10 years later it was sold for $6,500 to Shawneetown resident Thomas Ridgeway, who made his home there. A few years later, it reopened as a bank with Ridgeway working as a teller. He later became president of a private bank that operated in the building.
But the river that brought so much commerce to the southeastern Illinois city could also bring destruction. Flooding was always a reality along the Ohio, and since Shawneetown’s main street was close to the river, a necessity of the port city, people learned to live with the inconvenience of times of high water. That was before early 1937, when historic Ohio River floods devastated downtown Louisville, Cincinnati and every other river town along the way.
Old Shawneetown didn’t stand a chance. On the massive columns in front of the bank building, “you can still see the water lines where the flood of ’37 hit, and the city was under 20 feet of water,” Briddick said.
The main street was washed away. The first bank building in Illinois where money was lowered through the fence was reduced to its basement.
“After the flood, some of the houses were still there, the bank was still there, obviously, and some of the buildings were left, but most were destroyed,” Briddick said.
Size The river flood devastated their city. (Tamara Briddick)
The city’s displaced residents were moved to a temporary tent city. New Deal Works Progress Administration workers arrived to help with cleanup and disaster relief, and ended up helping residents relocate the entire city 3 miles inland and away from the prospect of devastating flooding.
“They moved over 100 houses,” Briddick said, including her great-grandparents’ house. “Can you imagine? They didn’t have the technology we have today. Three miles doesn’t seem like a long way to go, but when you’re moving a house in a wagon?
The big brick bank building was going nowhere. It remained in Old Shawneetown with a couple of other structures, including a hotel on the site where the French nobleman Marquis de Lafayette stayed during his visit to Shawneetown in 1825, one of only two stops the hero of the American Revolution made in Illinois during a tour of the country, together with Kaskaskia.
Even now, there are still some holdout residents, “enough to have a mayor,” in Old Shawneetown, Briddick said. And in the 1970s, the historical society and the Illinois Bankers Association teamed up to rebuild the first bank building 50 feet on the dry side of the levee, complete with floor grating. But the rest of the old city site is practically empty.
The Old Shawneetown Bank State Historic Site on May 31, 2024. Most of the town’s buildings were destroyed or moved after a massive flood along the Ohio River in 1937. (Paul Eisenberg/Daily Southtown)
Adamowski first visited the five-column bench in 2022 and said his first impression was that it was “a little eerie.”
“It’s a fascinating structure because of where it’s located,” he said. “It seems out of place now, but at the time, you can imagine it was in place.
“But that’s part of the story. This freestanding building in the middle of a field at this point, on the bank of a river, is a cool place. Knowing when it was built and where it is, it was impressive to see it for the first time. It is a beautiful and imposing structure. “I can’t believe they built this in 1838.”
After most of the city recovered and moved out, the bankers deeded the structure to the state and for a long time it was “just there,” Briddick said.
There have been spurts of state activity at the bank building over the decades, most recently a small influx of funds for exterior work.
“But the interior has effectively been left alone, and it’s kind of a shell,” Adamowski said.
So, 15 years after its initial appearance on Landmarks Illinois’ Most Endangered Historic Places list in 2009, the Old Shawneetown Bank returned to the list this year, along with another state historic site in southeastern Illinois, the Alexander Buel House , built in 1840 in Golconda.
Another state historic site on the endangered list this year is Bishop Hill Colony Church in northwestern Illinois.
The Old Shawneetown Bank State Historic Site May 31, 2024 in Old Shawneetown, Illinois. The building was deeded to the state in 1942, five years after Ohio River floods devastated the city. (Paul Eisenberg/Southtown Journal)
Adamowski is hopeful that the state’s new Historic Preservation Board will be created and get to work immediately on the state’s portfolio of historic sites.
“The state deserves credit for addressing this issue, pending the governor’s signature, in a really meaningful way,” he said. “We look forward to this board being able to find long-term solutions for these really important sites.”
While some state historic sites, such as the US Grant House in Galena, are very active with local programming, many, such as the Old Shawneetown Bank, are no longer accessible.
As the Gallatin County Historical Society prepares to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette’s visit next year, they hope the Old Shawneetown Bank building can be more than just a picturesque backdrop.
Adamowski, of Joliet, would love to see the building “open to a public interested in seeing the oldest original bank building in the state.”
“It’s a testament to the importance of Shawneetown as a gateway to Illinois, and that should be celebrated,” he said. “And it can be, given the time and planning to figure out the best way to use the property.”
Landmarks is a weekly column by Paul Eisenberg that explores the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at peisenberg@tribpub.com.
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