The Merchants' National Bank — Charter No. 6334

1902 – 1944

The fourth charter: The Merchants' National Bank of South Bend was organized on 21 June 1902, OCC Charter No. 6334 — the last national charter granted in the city. It was a DeRhodes family enterprise: the brothers DeRhodes organized it, K. C. DeRhodes served as its cashier, and the family erected the Merchants' Bank building at Michigan and Wayne Streets to house it. By 1921 the bank stood at 229 South Michigan with capital of $100,000 and surplus of $85,000, under president C. P. DuComb. It came through the Depression unreorganized — one of the city's three downtown survivors of 1931–1933 — and on 30 June 1934 it was robbed by the Dillinger gang, which took $28,439 by the Associated Press’s report of the day — $29,890 in Michael Newton’s encyclopedia account; the conflict stands whole in the Robberies record — and killed a South Bend police officer; the robbery belongs to the Story of South Bend section and the Crime record and is entered here only because the bank was its scene.

The consolidation of 1944: The Merchants' National ended as it had lived, by combination rather than failure. On 31 March 1944 it consolidated with the City National Bank and Trust Company under the City National's charter, and the consolidated bank took the new title The National Bank and Trust Company of South Bend. Charter No. 6334 had run forty-one years, and with the consolidation South Bend was left, for the first time since 1863, without an independently chartered national bank of the old line — the surviving national charter was the 1934 successor charter, No. 13987.

Sources:

1. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Alphabetical List of National Banks (1917) — Charter No. 6334.
2. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), vol. 1 — the DeRhodes brothers' organization of the bank and the Merchants' Bank building at Michigan and Wayne.
3. Polk's South Bend city directory, 1921, "Banks and Bankers" — 229 South Michigan, capital $100,000, surplus $85,000, president C. P. DuComb.
4. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, President's Report to Directors: Activities for the Year 1944 — the consolidation of 31 March 1944 under the City National charter and the new title, The National Bank and Trust Company of South Bend.
5. Associated Press report of 30 June 1934 — the Dillinger gang's robbery of the bank, $28,439 taken, an officer killed.