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Banks
Granger's bank history is a history of absence followed by a row of branches. For the whole nineteenth century and most of the twentieth, no bank of any kind — state branch, free bank, private banker, national bank, savings bank, building-and-loan — stood on the ground of Clay and Harris townships; the settlement's money trade ran through the post office and through South Bend. The banks dug below are therefore South Bend's, printed at the size the audit rows direct because they are the banks this ground used, with Granger's share stated plainly in each article: the share was custom, not counters. The modern row — seven institutions at eight offices on the State Road 23 corridor, verified in the banked fragment as of November 2026 — is the first banking ever seated here, and its institutions' charters, foundings, and failure records are dug to the parent level, which is where the record lives.
The first bank: the State Bank of Indiana's South Bend branch — and its documented absence here
Chartered January 28, 1834 · South Bend branch opened November 24, 1838 · no branch ever in Harris or Clay
The first bank of the county record is the State Bank of Indiana, chartered January 28, 1834, with headquarters at Indianapolis and authority to establish ten district branches. Its South Bend branch — the branch for this ground…
The successor line: the Bank of the State of Indiana, 1855–1864
Chartered March 3, 1855 · South Bend branch, 1858–1864 · traced as a line, not merged into the first bank
The second state bank is a separate line and is traced separately, as the row directs. Howard (1907), §16: "On March 3, 1855, a charter had been obtained for a bank to be known as the Bank of the State of Indiana, with a capital…
The free-banking years, and the private bankers who actually carried the trade
Indiana free-banking act, June 25, 1852 · the sweep run against South Bend, Mishawaka, Harris, and Clay
Indiana's free-banking era opened with "An Act to Authorize the Business of Banking," approved June 25, 1852, with a further act of June 16, 1855. The sweep for this row ran whole, and its searches are shown. Searched: the…
The national banks, with their charter numbers printed
1863–1936 · OCC charters of the South Bend line and the county neighbours; the seated row's parents tested
Charter numbers are the test of this section, and they are printed for every national bank in the line. The numbers are verified from the national-bank-note record (the Society of Paper Money Collectors' Bank Note History…
The savings-bank and trust-company stratum, as its own layer
1869–1907 · South Bend's savings and trust institutions, separated from the commercial banks
Between the national banks and the credit unions stands a stratum the banked row never separated: the savings banks and trust companies. It is dug here as its own layer from Howard (1907), §16, read first-hand.
The failure record whole, 1929–1934
The Depression window tested on the national-bank fate table, the FDIC list, and the Federal Reserve's closed-bank lists
The governing fact of this row is stated first: no bank stood on Granger ground in 1929–1934 — no bank stood there at all until the corridor era — so there is no Granger failure, liquidation, or paid-in-full case of the window to…
Building-and-loans, and the four credit unions as separate histories
1882–2023 · the savings layer tested by directory; the corridor's four credit unions dug one by one
The building-and-loan layer, tested. The Polk South Bend City Directory for 1921 prints the county seat's building-and-loan roll under its own heading, and it is a real stratum: the Building & Loan Association of South Bend , 216…
The bank buildings as buildings the record supports
The eight offices of the present row, verified November 2026 · pointer size, as the row directs
No Architecture fragment exists in the Granger set for this row to cross-reference; the cross-reference runs instead to the corridor and neighbourhood record, and the buildings are described at the size that record supports …
Wrong-city traps, tested and dispelled on the record
Granger, Texas · a Michigan lawsuit · the same-name sweep of the failure lists
The Granger National Bank is in Texas. The trap is real and it is dispelled whole. Granger National Bank is a genuine, FDIC-insured national bank — of Granger, Texas : founded 1920, "the oldest banking institution in Granger…