The Depression test — South Bend's banks, 1931 to 1934

1931 – 1934

The method: The Fort Wayne history ran its banks through the Depression one by one — survived, merged under pressure, or failed — from the banking record. Run the same way, South Bend's test reads as follows. Of the seventeen institutions of 1921, the record reached for this section establishes the fate of every downtown bank; the neighborhood banks' individual ends are, as named above, a gap in the record.

1931, the solvent liquidation and the June closings: The sorting began in order: on 31 January 1931 the South Bend State Bank liquidated voluntarily while solvent, dividing its business between the First National and the Union Trust. In the first week of June both buyers closed — the Union Trust suspended on 6 June 1931 and failed into the hands of the State Bank Commissioner; the First National closed at the same moment, its business taken over by the Indiana Trust Company, which renamed itself the First Bank and Trust Company, while Charter No. 126 went into voluntary liquidation, completed 12 January 1932. The American Trust suffered a run, suspended on 13 June, and — alone of the three — reopened under the state banking department's supervision. The bank's own corporate history adds the human machinery of the First National rescue: E. M. Morris, the founder of the Associates Investment Company, was brought in as president to make the merger, and he and Vincent Bendix, the founder of the Bendix Corporation, each invested $500,000 in the bank's capital. Of the eighteen banks then in South Bend, the same corporate history says, most failed within a three-year period, and the First Bank was the first allowed to reopen after the 1933 holiday — the bank's account, printed as its account.

1933–1934, the holiday and the one failure: The Citizens' National came out of the March 1933 bank holiday not licensed but in conservatorship (18 March 1933), and on 23 March 1934 it failed into a Comptroller's receivership — South Bend's only bank failure of the deposit-insurance era. The survivors stand in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's list of licensed banks as of 30 June 1935: the City National Bank (the Citizens' National's successor), the Merchants' National Bank, the American Trust Company, the Citizens Trust and Savings Bank, the First Bank and Trust Company, the St. Joseph County Savings Bank and the St. Joseph Loan and Trust Company. Three downtown institutions had closed in 1931, one of them reopening; one national bank had failed in 1934; no South Bend bank failed after 1934 in the record of the FDIC era.

The FDIC test: The FDIC's Failed Bank List, which covers insured-bank failures since 1 October 2000, was checked for South Bend by name and by city for this section. No South Bend institution appears on it. The Indiana institutions on the list are the Irwin Union Bank and Trust Company of Columbus (closed 18 September 2009), the Integra Bank National Association of Evansville (29 July 2011), SCB Bank of Shelbyville (10 February 2012) and the Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association of Kentland (10 July 2026). The city's one failure of the insured era, the Citizens' National of 1934, predates the list's span and was a Comptroller receivership, not an FDIC closing.

Sources:

1. South Bend State Bank v. Department of Financial Institutions, 213 Ind. 396 (1937) — the 1931 liquidation and the June 1931 closings of both purchasing banks.
2. Thomas A. Pollock, Tabular Guide to United States National Banks, 1863–1935, monographs for Charters No. 126 and No. 4764 — the First National's voluntary liquidation and the Citizens' National's conservatorship and receivership.
3. The bank-suspension database derived from Federal Reserve historical data — the Union Trust's suspension of 6 June 1931 and the American Trust's run, suspension and reopening.
4. 1st Source Corporation, 2013 annual report, "A Little History" — the bank's own account of the Morris presidency, the Morris and Bendix investments of $500,000 each, the eighteen banks and the reopening.
5. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, list of banks licensed to reopen, List No. 21, as of 30 June 1935 — the seven surviving institutions named above.
6. FDIC, Failed Bank List (failures since 1 October 2000), checked November 2026 — no South Bend entry; the Indiana entries are Columbus, Evansville, Shelbyville and Kentland, as printed.