The Fall of the Commercial Banking and Trust Company

In late February and early March of 1933, the country stood at the edge of a precipice of a national crisis. President Herbert Hoover was in his last weeks as President, and Franklin D. Roosevelt was poised to take the oath of office. Across the nation, confidence in the banking system was falling rapidly, and there was concern that panicked citizens would rush to the bank to withdraw all of their holdings and that banks wouldn’t be able to meet the demand for cash. In late February, the governor of Michigan declared a bank holiday in order to avoid a panic, and caught the attention of the entire nation. On March 5th, 1933, one day after taking the oath of office, President Franklin Roosevelt declared a four day national bank holiday, in order to stabilize the country’s banks. All financial transactions were halted, and businesses and individuals had to work with cash on hand in the interim.

In order to reopen after the bank holiday, every bank in the country had to prove it had sufficient funds in reserve to cover all of the funds on deposit. On March 15th, ten days after the bank holiday was declared, two Sandusky banks, Third National Exchange Bank and the Citizens Banking Company reopened their doors for business. The Commercial Banking and Trust Company waited for permission to resume business as usual.
Days passed without any word on the fate of the bank until the March 25, 1933 Star Journal announced that the Commercial Banking and Trust Company was coming back bigger and better. Plans were to reorganize the bank and open branches throughout Erie County, with capital stock of $300,000. The new bank was to be known as the United Bank of Erie County.

On May 30, 1933, the disappointing news that, after weeks of effort, it was impossible to organize the Commercial Banking and Trust due to the amount of money needed to provide working capital. Thus it became more important than ever to go ahead with the planned United Bank of Erie County. Plans to liquidate the Commercial Banking and Trust were outlined in the local newspaper. On June 15th, plans for a new bank were dashed when the Glass-Steagall bank legislation was passed. The Glass bill required newly organized banks to have more than $625,000 in capital and surplus, more than double the figure that had been planned for the Erie County bank. On Saturday, July 21, the bank was taken over by the state superintendent of banks. Depositors were requested to file proofs of claim before November 30th.

Eventually, the matter of the bank liquidation ended up in court, and dragged on for years. In March, 1941, the building was finally sold. In November, 1941, it was announced that depositors would receive a final dividend of 21.65 percent. In the intervening years, the bank paid out sixty percent of the claims of depositors, totaling $1,771,377.39. It also charged off $1,336,106.30 to loss.

Depositors of the bank faced real losses. Claims under $100 were paid a flat ten dollars, a substantial loss in 1941. The money was tied up for years as the liquidation process played out. The keys to the building were handed over by the liquidator on January 2, 1942, and the final report was filed February 26, 1942.

In the meantime the Western Securities Bank moved into the building that the Commercial Banking and Trust Company had constructed in the early 1920s. The Western Security Bank was located at the corner of Columbus and East Washington Row until it relocated in 1974.

Local History Multimedia Presentations on the Library's Website

You may not have noticed another feature the Sandusky Library offers for presenting local history. On the library's website, we have a link for the Follett House Museum. . . . In that link, you will find access to multimedia presentations on topics in local history, including a video tour of the Follett House Museum and audio podcasts, including a report on the first all-woman jury in Erie County and the story of the New Year's Pretzel. You can select a podcast by visiting the website, or you can subscribe to a feed to be kept informed when new programs are posted.

Mrs. Eunice Brown Dewitt on the Home Front in the Great War

Eunice Ann Brown was born in Danbury Township in 1832 to Loderick Brown and Margaret Kelly Brown. Loderick Brown was the Keeper of the Marblehead Lighthouse from 1849 to 1853. Mrs. Brown was the granddaughter of William Kelly, who built the Marblehead Lighthouse in 1822. Eunice married James Dewitt in 1876, but was widowed before 1900. She was a tireless worker during World War I, knitting one hundred and eleven pairs of socks for the soldiers overseas. Her goal was “to beat the Kaiser with my knitting needles.”

The Honor Roll, Erie County Edition provides photographs and biographies of the area soldiers who served in World War One, as well information about those who aided the war effort on the home front.

Temperance Activities in Early Sandusky

According to an early Western Reserve Historical Society Tract (in 1888), the first temperance society in Huron County was organized by F. D. Parish in 1831. (Sandusky was located in Huron County until the creation of Erie County in 1838.)

Hewson L. Peeke’s History of Erie County contains an entire chapter devoted to temperance activities in Erie County. He states that in the 1840s the “Sons of Temperance” and the “Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society” were both organizations that were opposed to the use or manufacturing of intoxicating beverages.

A joint parade was celebrated on St. Patrick’s Day in 1844 by the local members of the “Sons of the Emerald Isle” and the “Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society,” followed by a dinner at the Mansion House. On June 10, 1847, the Sons of Temperance had a parade in Sandusky, with members coming from Sandusky, Castalia, Mansfield, Mount Vernon, Tiffin, and Republic. An estimated 300 members marched in the parade.

On the night of August 7, 1849, a meeting was held at the Congregational Church for the purpose of organizing a Temperance League. There were nineteen women who were active members, and five women who were supporting members. Later their group became a chapter of the W.C.T.U., the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. (The opening page of their book of minutes from 1879 is shown above.) The women gathered regularly to pray, sing, and make plans on how to spread the message of temperance throughout all sections of the community.

Mrs. M.F. Cowdery (above) was a founding member of the Temperance League in Sandusky. (This portrait shows her, circa 1895, when she was a founding member of the organization that eventually became the Library Association of Sandusky.)

Ohioans were very involved in the temperance movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is a museum devoted to the Anti-Saloon League (whose origin is traced to Oberlin in 1893) at the Westerville Public Library.

New Collection of Twentieth-Century Newspapers on Microfilm

Thanks to a generous contribution from the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, subsidized by the generousity of the Sidney Frohman Foundation, the Sandusky Library has received a microfilm collection of the Sandusky Daily News, a short-lived newspaper founded in 1934.There are ten reels of the newspaper available for viewing in the Archives Research Center, covering from August 16, 1934 to December 31, 1937. Additional reels may become available in the future. Although this newspaper is not indexed, it offers a unique source of information, presenting another perspective on life in Sandusky during the Great Depression.

To read this newspaper, come and visit the reference department!

The Grand Cosmorama of 1891

Before Mrs. Jay O. Moss was successful in her appeal to Andrew Carnegie for a donation of $50,000 for the purpose of the building a public library in Sandusky, Ohio, she belonged to a group known as the “Library Building Fund Association,” or L.B.F.A.

The Library Building Fund Association was organized in 1886 with the purpose of raising money to purchase or build a library in Sandusky. They worked diligently to secure funds by sponsoring plays, lectures, and musicals.

Pictured below is the program from the “Grand Cosmorama” held at the Opera House in Sandusky on April 3, 1891, under the auspices of the Ladies Building Fund Association.
The evening’s event opened and closed with selections from the Ladies Banjo Club. Several “living pictures” were acted out. The “Light Infantry” featured six children singing and acting. The “Wheel of Fate” number involved eight ladies in party costumes doing a drill with fans. The “Old Maids of Lee” was an amusing act in which the participants frantically tried to catch a man. Fifty Sandusky residents took part in the festivities.

Susie Selkirk (shown here in her Sandusky High School graduation photo, class of 1888) was one of the ladies who participated in the Grand Cosmorama.

See the Sandusky Daily Register of April 3, 1891 to read an account of the 1891 Grand Cosmorama, available on microfilm in the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library.

Mrs. Jay O. Moss addressed the Firelands Historical Society in 1900 and spoke about the history of the “Free Library” in Sandusky. (You can read her address in the 1900 “Firelands Pioneer.”) One of Mrs. Moss’s comments was especially poignant: “The dimensions of our building almost stagger us, for our income will be small and our size great, but if our object of bringing people and library together, in unity, acting in sympathy and sentiment, each with the other, can only be accomplished, our halcyon days are indeed upon us.”

The Sandusky Library website has a brief history of the library.

If you're in Ohio, remember to vote on March 4!

Mystery Image: Washington Park as it Never Was

We recently received a donation of a drawing of Washington Park from an out-of-town collector who has never been in Sandusky. She thought it would be an interesting item for our collections, showing a view of the city from 1921. It certainly is an interesting view -- but it is a scene that never existed in reality.

The image shows a slightly elevated view of Washington Park, from Wayne Street, down Washington Street. We can see several landmarks that were familiar to residents in 1921: on the left is Sandusky High School, with its top floor still there; beyond that we see the Erie County Courthouse as it looked before its remodeling in the 1930s; on the right is the Kingsbury Block, the Sloane House Hotel, Odd Fellows Hall, and the Presbyterian Church.

The strange part of this drawing is in the center of the picture: We see Washington Street as a boulevard, with landscaped medians and a monument at the center of the intersection with Jackson Street. Of course, this plan was never built, but what is the story behind its creation? What we do know about this drawing is that the donor found it in a photo album that was originally owned by Jessie A. Spieker-Fritz, who lived on Camp Street in Sandusky. The 1923 city directory says that she was a secretary for the Brown Clutch Company. This would help to explain how she came to have a copy of this drawing: In the lower right corner of the image, we see that the drawing was designed by T.T. Morgan and drawn by Charles Hottmann; Morgan was the president of the Brown Clutch Company and Hottmann was a superintendent there.

As to why the picture was drawn and why the plan was not implemented, those questions are still mysteries. Was Morgan part of a planning committee for the city, or were he and Hottmann simply interested citizens with an idea? Was this plan ever formally considered by the city? Further research is needed to find the answers.

Viewing this image raises another question for me: You notice in the background the monument in the intersection, most likely intended as a civic monument or war memorial. Have you noticed that in nearly every city or town in Ohio (and, it seems, in most American communities settled in the 19th century), there is a major civic monument in a prominent public square, sometimes several, usually built in the 19th century or early 20th century? Have you noticed that there is no grand civic monument from that time in Sandusky? (Some monuments have been built downtown in recent years of course.) Why did early Sanduskians not follow the trend of most communities of the time, and build a great war memorial or other monument? Any thoughts?

Program Announcement: Ohio's Presidents (Brown Bag Series)

The subject of our next program in the brown bag lunch series is Ohio's Presidents. Bring your lunch and come to the Library Program Room (Terrace Level) at noon on Wednesday, February 20. Join us as we commemorate Presidents' Day with Tom Culbertson, Executive Director of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. Mr. Culbertson will explore Ohio's Presidential Legacy, looking at Ohio's presidential heyday and the factors that contributed to Ohio's impressive presidential success in the Nineteenth Century.

Registration is requested. To register, call 419-625-3834 and press 0 to speak with a switchboard operator (9-5, Monday-Friday) or press Option 6 to leave a message.

Winter Races on Central Avenue

An earlier blog entry reported on horse racing at the original Erie County Fairgrounds, located at what is now Cable Park in Sandusky. But there also has been horse racing on the other side of town, but of a different sort. For a few winters around 1900, Central Avenue, between Monroe and North Depot Streets, became known as the "speedway," where local stables brought their best horses and drivers for races on the snowy pavement. (Central Avenue had only recently been paved.)

An article in the Register newspaper on December 18, 1901 described plans for a season of racing on the Avenue, described as "without a doubt one of the best in this section of the country. It is about a half mile long and is plenty wide enough for four horses to come down abreast." (You can see from the photo above that this was an accurate claim.) It described the leading stables in the area, and the prospects for racing that season.

Do you think today would be a good day for a sleigh race?

A Scene on Decatur Street in 1899

The photograph above, taken about 1899, is from the Business Collection of the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library. Notes on the back of the original photo indicate that the stone building on the right was built in 1844 for a hotel. It was later called the North American House. In 1870 Adam Oehm, bought the building for a feed store. Helen Hansen, author of At Home in Early Sandusky, said that she was born (in 1902) in the stone building in the apartments above Mr. Oehm’s store and residence. By 1926 this building was razed and the Hinde and Dauch Co. built their office at this location. Presently the Board of Education of the Sandusky City Schools is located at the southwest corner of Decatur and Adams Streets.

To the south of the stone building, at 407 Decatur Street, was Hodgins & Large Horseshoeing. The 1900 City Directory lists William Hodgins and Charles Large as the proprietors of this business.

At 411 Decatur Street, just south of Hodgins & Large’s horseshoeing shop was a saloon owned by August Hummel. August Hummel was a German immigrant, as were Adam Oehm and William Hodgins. At the time of August Hummel’s death in July of 1915, he still had a brother and sister residing in Wuerttemberg, Germany.

The construction workers pictured in the forefront of the photograph are working on a road or curb project for the city.