West End State Bank to Valley American — the Wiekamp succession

1920 – the line runs to PNC today

The neighborhood bank: The West End State Bank was established on 5 June 1920 — the date the FDIC's institution-history record carries for the bank that became Valley American — in Mishawaka's West End, and for its first decades it "served only a small portion of the community, namely the Belgian and Italian neighborhoods of Mishawaka's West End," in the biography of the man who bought it. Those neighborhoods were the immigrant west side the woolen and rubber works had drawn — the bank was their institution in the way the First National, across town, was the establishment's. It came through the Depression as one of the city's two licensed survivors on the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's list of 30 June 1935, beside the First National.

Wiekamp: Darwin Wiekamp was a Mishawaka man who had begun at the Associates Corporation of South Bend in September 1945. In the 1960s — the Indiana University South Bend commencement biography that is the narrative carrier dates the partnership's "monumental step" to 1966 — Wiekamp and his partner purchased the West End State Bank, and renamed it Valley Bank, afterward Valley American Bank & Trust Company. Under Wiekamp the neighborhood bank became the region's: Valley American's resources stood at $541,755,000 with twenty locations, eight of them in South Bend, on the figures of 30 September 1990 carried in a South Bend redevelopment official statement, and the IUSB biography records that under Wiekamp Valley American's assets reached $1 billion. On 1 October 1983 the Mishawaka bank absorbed South Bend's American National Bank & Trust in the combination the FDIC's institution record carries, Valley American surviving — the West End's bank swallowing a downtown South Bend charter is the measure of the Wiekamp course. The house kept a downtown Mishawaka banking office at Lincoln Way East and Church Street through those years (a Valley branch stands there in the Seventh Circuit's record of Leffel v. Valley Financial Services for 1988–93).

To the present holders: The succession from Valley American runs on the FDIC institution record, the same record the South Bend banks file prints: National City Bank of Indiana on 20 November 1998; National City Bank in 2006; and PNC Bank, National Association, on 6 November 2009, when PNC's acquisition of National City carried the Mishawaka charter's line into the Pittsburgh bank, where it remains. The building tells the same story in brick. In June 2024 Beacon Health System announced the demolition of "the former PNC bank, originally Valley American Bank," at Lincoln Way East and Church Street in downtown Mishawaka, for its $21.7 million, 25,500-square-foot Mishawaka Outpatient Center, construction from September 2024 and opening anticipated in early 2026. The West End's bank of 1920 ends its Mishawaka course, in November 2026, as a hospital center rising on its downtown ground — its charter line alive inside PNC, its building gone.

Sources:

1. FDIC institution-history record, as carried in the South Bend banks file of this build — Valley American's establishment date of 5 June 1920 (the West End State Bank) and the succession: the 1 October 1983 combination with South Bend's American National Bank & Trust, National City Bank of Indiana (20 November 1998), National City Bank (2006), PNC Bank, N.A. (6 November 2009).
2. Indiana University South Bend, commencement program biography of Darwin Wiekamp (2001) — Wiekamp's Associates Corporation start in September 1945; the partners' purchase of the West End State Bank of Mishawaka, operating since 1920 and serving the Belgian and Italian neighborhoods of the West End; the renaming to Valley Bank; and Valley American's assets reaching $1 billion under his leadership.
3. Official statement, City of South Bend redevelopment issue (1990) — Valley American Bank & Trust Co. at $541,755,000 in resources and twenty locations, eight in South Bend, at 30 September 1990; and Leffel v. Valley Financial Services, Inc., 113 F.3d 787 (7th Cir. 1997) — the downtown Mishawaka branch at Lincoln Way East, 1988–93.
4. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, licensed banks list No. 21 (30 June 1935) — West End State Bank among Mishawaka's two licensed member banks.
5. Beacon Health System announcement (18 June 2024) — demolition of the former PNC bank, originally Valley American Bank, at Lincoln Way East and Church Street, for the $21.7 million, 25,500-square-foot Mishawaka Outpatient Center, construction from September 2024, opening anticipated early 2026.