Tri-State Loan and Trust Company

1889 (as the Tri-State Building and Loan Association) – consolidated into the First National Bank, 1929

Founded: In 1889 Perry Randall organised the Tri-State Building and Loan Association — described in the National Register nomination for his Randall Building as the city's first homebuilding company. George W. Pixley was a co-organiser: his daughter's obituary names him among the "organizers of the old Tri-State Building and Loan Association which later became the Tri-State Loan & Trust Co.," and a News-Sentinel Cityscapes history has Pixley forming the loan and trust company shortly after he built the Pixley-Long Building in 1889. Colonel Samuel M. Foster's biographical sketch adds that in 1891 he "assisted in the organization of the Tri-State Loan and Trust Company" and took its first twenty-five shares. In 1903 the association was reorganised as the Tri-State Loan and Trust Company, and Randall then sold his interest.

What it did: Building-and-loan savings and home finance first, then a full loan and trust business. The 1918 city directory places it at 811–815 Calhoun Street, with Charles A. Wilding as president and G. W. Pixley still secretary — its organiser at his desk nearly thirty years on.

Fate: In 1929 the company consolidated with the First National Bank of Fort Wayne under the First National's charter, the combined institution taking the name First and Tri-State National Bank and Trust Company of Fort Wayne (Comptroller of the Currency, report for the year ended 31 October 1930; Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago annual report, 1929). Its trust business thus runs on into the Old-First National and Fort Wayne National Bank line carried in the First National entries.

Sources:

1. Randall Building National Register nomination, National Park Service — the 1889 organisation by Perry Randall and the 1903 reorganisation.
2. News-Sentinel, Cityscapes, 15 May 1982, and ACGSI Pixley page; Journal Gazette, 31 January 1961 (obituary of Louise Pixley Coe) — Pixley's organising role.
3. B. J. Griswold, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Vol. II (1917), Samuel M. Foster sketch — the 1891 assistance and first shares. R. L. Polk, Fort Wayne city directory, 1918 — address and officers.
4. Comptroller of the Currency, annual report (year ended 31 October 1930), Table 15; Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, annual report 1929 (FRASER) — the 1929 consolidation.