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Banks — North Liberty
North Liberty has had a bank on North Main Street, on one side of one block, for most of the years since about 1911 — but the record does not give it one bank. It gives a state bank that closed in January 1927 and fought its insolvency in court through 1928; a second bank a National Register nomination places in town in 1929 and no other carrier names; a directory of 1940 that lists twenty-one Main Street businesses and no bank at all; and a new state charter, FDIC Certificate 15942, dated 1 May 1943, under which the Community State Bank traded until it merged into 1st Source Bank in 1987 — whose branch stands today in the building the Community State Bank built in 1960. Whether the 1943 charter continued the old bank or replaced it is the central open question of this section, and it prints below as a conflict, not as a story smoothed over it.
The bank line, whole: three attestations, not one chain
c. 1911 – present
The town's banking record comes in three pieces, and no carrier reached joins them. First, a North Liberty State Bank, in a purpose-built Classical Revival building at 125 North Main Street erected between 1909 and 1912, listed…
The North Liberty State Bank: $25,000 capital, Reamer and Steele, closed 17 January 1927
By 1916 – 17 January 1927; insolvency litigated 1928
The bank before 1943 is solved: it was the North Liberty State Bank. R. L. Polk & Co.'s Indiana Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1916–1917 (pp. 899–900) lists it in the town's business directory: "North Liberty State Bank…
The second bank of 1929 — a nomination sentence no carrier names
1929, as the nomination prints it
One sentence is the whole of this bank's record. The Commercial District nomination (§8) states that the town "also had a second bank operating south of the movie theater in 1929" — the theater then occupying the south storefront…
The bankless interval: the 1940 directory lists no bank
1927/1929 – 1 May 1943
Between the old bank's end and the new charter, the town's own directory shows no bank at all. The nomination's transcription of the 1940 St. Joseph County telephone directory's North Liberty section lists the town's Main Street…
The Community State Bank of North Liberty, 1943–1987: Certificate 15942
1 May 1943 – 1 April 1987
The second proven bank opens on a federal date. The FDIC's institution history for the Community State Bank of North Liberty (Certificate 15942, state charter, headquarters on Main Street) carries exactly two events: its…
The continuity conflict, printed whole: one bank, or two?
Standing open, November 2026
The nomination tells one bank's story; the federal record tells two. The nomination asserts continuity in so many words: the Community State Bank was "formerly known as the State Bank which was located in a building it…
The failure record, tested whole
Tested November 2026
The town's bank failure is real, dated 1927, and invisible to the modern list — because it predates the list's world. The FDIC's Failed Bank List, whose own stated span is banks failed since 1 October 2000, was searched for North…
The savings layer and the credit unions: tested, and not found
Tested November 2026
Two whole strata of small-town finance were tested for North Liberty, and neither is there. No building-and-loan association of North Liberty, Indiana surfaced in any search; the one near-name hit, a "Northern Liberty…
The branch today: 1st Source Bank at 109 North Main, November 2026
As of November 2026
The bank's present seat is the building of 1960, under the name that absorbed it in 1987. The Town of North Liberty's official links page lists "1st Source Bank, 109 North Main Street, North Liberty, IN, 574-656-8131" — the…
Same-name traps, dispelled on the record
Dispelled November 2026
"Community State Bank" is one of America's commonest bank names, and the searches for this one returned a crowd of others. None of the following is North Liberty's bank (Certificate 15942), and each is recorded so no later pass…