The South Bend National Bank — Charter No. 1739

1870 – 1919

The second charter: The South Bend National Bank was organized on 9 November 1870 and chartered on 29 November 1870, OCC Charter No. 1739. Its organizers, as the county history lists them, were John Brownfield, William Miller, Lucius Hubbard, Schuyler Colfax, William Mack, Powers Green, Darwin H. Baker, Benjamin F. Price and Caleb A. Kimball — a roll that overlaps the First National's at nearly every name, the same small circle of men running the city's second national bank beside its first. Brownfield, who had been president of the Bank of the State of Indiana's branch, was its first president; William Miller succeeded him in 1888 and held the office until his death on 21 February 1901, and Marvin Campbell followed. The city history of 1901 claimed the bank as the practical outgrowth and successor of the old State Bank of Indiana line, on the strength of Brownfield's continuity; the charter record itself, which begins the bank in 1870, leaves that claimed descent unresolved, and it is printed here as a claim, not a succession.

The consolidation: The bank stood at 103 North Michigan Street in 1913. On 27 March 1919 it consolidated with the Citizens' National Bank under the Act of 7 November 1918 — one of the first consolidations under the new federal consolidation law — and its separate existence ended, which is why no South Bend National Bank appears in the Polk directory of 1921. Charter No. 1739 had run forty-eight years.

Sources:

1. Thomas A. Pollock, Tabular Guide to United States National Banks, 1863–1935, the monograph for Charter No. 1739 — organization 9 November 1870, charter 29 November 1870, the presidents, the 1913 address, the consolidation of 27 March 1919, and the antecedent carried as unresolved with establishment dated 1838.
2. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), vol. 1, §16, "Banks" — the organizers' list.
3. Anderson & Cooley, South Bend and the Men Who Have Made It (1901) — the claimed descent from the State Bank line, printed as the claim it is.
4. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Alphabetical List of National Banks (1917) — Charter No. 1739.