Landmarks: Oldest standing bank in Illinois among ‘endangered’ state sites

Old Shawneetown Bank State Historic Site was recently listed as endangered by Landmarks Illinois, but legislative help could be coming.

Long before it was washed away by Ohio River floodwaters, there was a metal grate in the floor of the first bank building in Illinois.

Really just a log house in Old Shawneetown, owner John Marshall, who’d made some money in the nearby salt mines, dedicated one room to banking operations.

“There was a grate in the floor, and the money — gold, silver, paper money — would be lowered into a barrel in the basement,” said Tamara Briddick, of the Gallatin County Historical Society. “And there was a guard down there who often slept on top of the barrel.”

Even as one of the newest American settlements west of the Ohio River, the place was known as Old Shawneetown because it had been a longtime population center of indigenous Shawnee people. The town’s modern history stretches back to the late 1700s, when it was established by the federal government as home to a land office that would help solidify the new nation’s holdings in what was then called the Northwest Territory.

A few years later, Illinois became a state, and bustling river port Shawneetown became home to the state’s first bank in 1821.

“We created the state, basically,” Briddick said. “That’s my personal opinion, but it all started right here.”

The imposing structure, erected in 1838, that housed the state’s first bank now stands nearly alone in a place most residents abandoned more than 80 years ago. But it’s one of the properties at the heart of legislation awaiting the signature of Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The bill would establish an appointed State Historic Preservation Board within the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, tasked with taking a hard look at the state’s historic properties.

Among those happy to see the move is Quinn Adamowski of Landmarks Illinois. The 56 places in Illinois designated State Historic Sites “are in varying conditions” thanks to a longstanding lack of resources available to IDNR, particularly for recreational and educational purposes, he said. While some of the sites have had budget increases over the last five or six years, “DNR is playing catch-up on deferred maintenance across the board,” he said.

In Old Shawneetown, deferred attention is nothing new. The eastern nexus of one of the first roads to connect the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Old Shawneetown had been visited by Lewis and Clark on their way to their famous exploration out west. Abraham Lincoln visited several times as a lawyer and political candidate. At least one hero of the American Revolution made Shawneetown a destination. But the town these days is famous mostly for what used to be there.

The first incarnation of the First State Bank of Illinois lasted a couple of years, sputtered, then was reborn as the State Bank of Illinois in the 1830s, with larger assets and plans. In 1838, a 3-story brick building fronted by five massive doric columns opened a block west of Main Street, on the dry side of the Shawneetown levee.

One of the first orders of business at the impressive new bank was the consideration of proposals put forth by a contingent from the nascent city at the southwest corner of Lake Michigan. The correspondence between Shawneetown’s money men and Chicago’s city fathers has reached the slimly populated upper echelon of banking legends.

As the story goes, Shawneetown refused Chicago’s request for a loan.

“The local lore is we turned them down because they were too far from Shawneetown to amount to anything,” Briddick said.

But the truth lies closer to banking norms from any era. According to a letter addressed to Chicago Mayor Buckner Stith Morris, dated July 5, 1838, on file at the Gallatin County Historical Society, Chicago leaders first asked Shawneetown bankers to establish a branch there and, failing that, to loan the new city a few thousand bucks. Both requests were turned down, in part because of Chicago’s distance from the era’s superhighway of commerce — the Ohio River.

“We felt it was bad business to loan them money, because how would we get our money back?” Briddick said. “They were too far away from the river.”

Fortunes in Shawneetown rose and fell nearly as fast as river levels on the Ohio. The “five column bank” opened and closed five times.

In 1853, Gov. Joel Matteson, namesake of the south suburban village, purchased the bank for $15,000, but less than 10 years later it was sold for $6,500 to Shawneetown resident Thomas Ridgeway, who made his home there. A few years after that it reopened as a bank with Ridgeway working as its cashier. He later became president of a private bank operating in the building.

But the river that delivered so much commerce to the southeastern Illinois town could also bring destruction. Flooding always was a fact of life along the Ohio, and with Shawneetown’s Main Street being close to the river — a port town necessity — people learned to live with the inconvenience of high water times. That was before early 1937, when historic Ohio River floodwaters raged through downtown Louisville, Cincinnati and every other river town along the way.

Old Shawneetown didn’t stand a chance. On the massive columns out front of the bank building, “you still can see the water lines where the ’37 flood came, and the city was under 20 feet of water,” Briddick said.

Main Street was washed away. The first bank building in Illinois where money was lowered through the grate was reduced to its root cellar.

“After the flood, some of the houses were still there, the bank was still there, obviously, and some of the buildings were left, but most were destroyed,” Briddick said.

The town’s displaced residents were moved to a temporary tent city. Workers from the New Deal Works Progress Administration arrived to assist with disaster relief and cleanup, and ended up helping the residents relocate the entire town 3 miles inland and away from the prospect of ravaging floods.

“There were over 100 houses they moved,” Briddick said, including her great-grandparents’ home. “Can you imagine? They didn’t have the technology we have today. Three miles doesn’t seem a long way to go, but when you’re moving a house on a wagon?”

The large, brick bank building was not going anywhere. It remained in Old Shawneetown with a couple of other structures, including a hotel on the site where French nobleman Marquis de Lafayette stayed during his 1825 visit to Shawneetown, one of only two stops the hero of the American Revolution made in Illinois during a tour of the country, along with Kaskaskia.

Even now, there’s still a few holdout residents, “enough to have a town mayor,” in Old Shawneetown, Briddick said. And in the 1970s, the historical society and the Illinois Bankers Association teamed up to rebuild the first bank building 50 feet on the dry side of the levee, complete with floor grate. But the rest of the former town site is largely empty.

Adamowski first visited the five column bank in 2022, and said his first impression was it was “kind of eerie.”

“It’s a fascinating structure because of where it’s at,” he said. “It seems out of place now, but at the time, you can imagine it was very much in place.

“But that’s part of the story. This freestanding building out in the middle of a field at this point, on the bank of a river, it’s a cool place. Knowing when it was constructed and where it is, it was breathtaking to see it the first time. It’s a beautiful, imposing structure. I can’t believe they built this in 1838.”

After most of the town picked up and moved, the bankers deeded the structure to the state and, for a long time, it was “just sitting there,” Briddick said.

There have been spurts of state activity at the bank building over the decades, most recently a small influx of funding for exterior work.

“But the interior has effectively been left alone, and it’s kind of a shell,” Adamowski said.

So 15 years after its initial appearance on Landmarks Illinois’ Most Endangered Historic Places list in 2009, the Old Shawneetown Bank was returned to the list this year, along with another State Historic Site in southeastern Illinois, The Alexander Buel House, constructed in 1840 in Golconda.

Another State Historic Site that made the endangered list this year is the Bishop Hill Colony Church in northwestern Illinois.

Adamowski is hopeful the new state Historic Preservation Board will be created, and immediately get to work on the state historic site portfolio.

“The state deserves credit for tackling this issue, pending the governor’s signature, in a really meaningful way,” he said. “We’re looking forward to when this board is able to come up with solutions long term for these really important sites.”

While some state historic sites, such as the U.S. Grant home in Galena, are very active with local programming, many, such as the Old Shawneetown Bank, aren’t accessible anymore.

As the Gallatin County Historical Society prepares to celebrate next year’s 200th anniversary of Marquis de Lafayette’s visit, they hope the Old Shawneetown Bank building can be more than just a picturesque backdrop.

Adamowski, of Joliet, would love to see the building “opened up for a public that has interest in seeing the oldest original bank building in the state.”

“It’s a testament to the importance of Shawneetown as a gateway to Illinois, and that should be celebrated,” he said. “And it can be, given the time and planning to figure out the best way to utilize the property.”

Landmarks is a weekly column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at peisenberg@tribpub.com.,