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17 January 1927 – September 1928
The largest financial collapse in the town's record produced a courtroom fight about valuation, not a criminal trial. As the banks leg of this build establishes at anchor strength, the North Liberty State Bank was closed by the state effective 17 January 1927 (Federal Reserve Board Mimeograph Letters X-1530, week ended 21 January 1927), and in September 1928 the Walkerton Independent reported the State Banking Department's insolvency petition "bitterly contested by officials of the bank," who charged the Department with "placing ridiculous valuations upon the securities the bank holds in order to prove its insolvency." No indictment, embezzlement charge or conviction arising from the closing was found in the sources reached. The episode therefore prints in this section as what the record shows — a civil insolvency contest — and any criminal layer stands as a named gap, its settlers the St. Joseph County court record of the 1928 hearing and the South Bend press of record for 1927–28.