The Union Trust Company — the failure of June 1931

1908 – 1931

The company: The Union Trust Company was organized in 1908 and banked at 202–204 South Michigan Street with capital of $200,000. Its president was Joseph E. Neff. The company was woven into the downtown system: the First National Bank kept its rooms in the Union Trust building at Michigan and Jefferson from 1923, and in January 1931 the Union Trust took over the savings deposits, the mortgages and — as trustee — the real estate of the liquidating South Bend State Bank. Five months later it failed itself.

The failure: The Union Trust suspended on 6 June 1931 and did not reopen; its assets were turned over to the Indiana State Bank Commissioner, and the deputy examiner Thomas D. Barr was studying its affairs for the banking department by the end of June. The failure closed the second of downtown's three large institutions inside a week. Neff's own career in the wreckage is a measure of the times: three years later the Comptroller appointed him receiver of the failed Citizens' National Bank.

Sources:

1. Polk's South Bend city directory, 1921, "Banks and Bankers" — the Union Trust Company, organized 1908, 202–204 South Michigan, capital $200,000, president J. E. Neff.
2. The bank-suspension database derived from Federal Reserve historical data — suspension 6 June 1931, ending in closure.
3. South Bend State Bank v. Department of Financial Institutions, 213 Ind. 396 (1937) — the Union Trust's assumption of the South Bend State Bank's savings business in 1931 and the delivery of its own assets to the State Bank Commissioner on its failure.
4. Indianapolis Times, 27 June 1931 — the state banking department's examination of the Union Trust's affairs.