Wilson Creek State Bank WIlson Creek, WA Biographical History A bank was among the first institutions established at the town of Wilson Creek. This town, originally spelled as Wilsoncreek, had been laid out informally in about 1900 or 1901. Its site appeared to be the most promising for a town in Washingtons Big Bend area, rapidly going through a transition from a range and grazing area to one dominated by dry-farming. A host of mercantile institutions quickly approved of Wilson Creek and for their benefit a commercial bank was established. Thus, by mid-1901 a bank had been organized at Wilson Creek. Not much is known about this earliest banking institution, for few of its records were passed on to its successors. It began as a private, or incorporated, bank, styled the Bank of Wilson Creek, and was associated with the insurance and real estate firm of Emmert and Swanson. Donald Urquhart, a rancher who had lived near the site of Wilson Creek for many years prior to the beginning of the town, served as president. In January of 1903 this bank dropped the private bank format and filed articles of incorporation as the State Bank of Wilson Creek. The bank continued under this arrangement for a little over a year, at which time several of the original partners left Wilson Creek and sold the bank to John D. Bassett of Ritzville. Bassett was then the President of the First National Bank of Ritzville and the principal owner of a chain of banks in central Washington. Among the dozen or so Bassett banks could be found national banks, state banks and private banks. For the Wilson Creek establishment, Bassett chose to adopt the private bank form, having the predecessor State Bank of Wilson Creek disincorporated and a successor firm known as the Citizens Bank substituted in its place in May of 1904. Upon Bassetts acquisition of the bank, management was passed to one of his associates, John W. Brewer, who served as Cashier for several years. Brewer was also the United States Land Commissioner for Douglas County, as well as the successor of the old firm of Emmert and Swanson. Later he emerged as the principal minority stockholder of the bank. From 1904 to 1907 the bank operated as the unincorporated Citizens Bank. In 1906 Brewer moved it to a new brick building, built especially for the Bank. This building is now standing, empty and abandoned in Wilson Creek although it has recently been named a historic building by the National Park Service. About the time the building was being erected, owner J. D. Bassett was elected to the Washington State legislature and became chairman of the House Banking Committee. From that post he led the movement which resulted in the states banking code of 1907. This code finally gave Washington a unified banking law, established a banking examiners department and brought some regulation to the heretofore almost totally unsupervised state banks. For Wilson Creek, this law led to incorporation under the new provisions and a change in name to Citizens State Bank in late 1907. Two years later the nature of the bank again changed dramatically when J. D. Bassett combined his chain of banks with several other eastern Washington banks under a holding company known as the Union Securities Company. For a brief time Bassett appeared as the principal figure in this company, but by 1911 he had withdrawn to form a mortgage placement firm and the holding companys identity as an extension of the Old National Bank of Spokane became much clearer. The Old National Bank had in fact been the instigator of the formation of the Union Securities Company, as is evidenced by the similarity of its name to that of the Union Trust Company, the state bank and investment organization which was interlocked with the Old National Bank. As part of the Union Securities group, the Citizens State Bank joined about twenty other eastern Washington banks in this early experiment at bank consolidation. The Union Securities Company instituted certain basic policies for the bank, including regular auditing and supervision, as well as management of the Citizen State Banks reserve deposit at the Old National Bank. Union Securities also kept its ownership at fifty-one percent of the capital stock, while most of the remainder was sold to Wilson Creek area citizens. This policy resulted in a board of directors from the Wilson Creek area--including Donald Urquhart, president of the old Bank of Wilson Creek, who now emerged as the President of the Citizens State Bank.Day-to-day management was also to be given to local control and for this purpose Union Securities named a new Cashier- T. Claud Bennett, a businessman and Douglas County official. Despite this decentralized arrangement, the Union Securities Company made most basic decisions about bank operation.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 23:22:20 +0000
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