The Price of a Bank Failure
After the Merchants' National Bank of Tacoma collapsed, a local shopkeeper lost his life savings and his mental stability, eventually seeking refuge in a Seattle jail.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
N. D. Sturdevant, who until recently conducted a fruit and confectionery store at 1702 D Street, Tacoma, is in the county jail in this city and will probably be given an examination before Judge Langley as to his sanity. When the Merchants' National Bank of Tacoma went under, he lost all the money he possessed, $255.90, and he has brooded over his loss so much that his mind has become deranged. Sturdevant called at the sheriff's office yesterday at noon and said that he wanted to be locked up, giving as his reason that several firemen were after him for the purpose of doing him bodily harm. Sheriff Woolery believed him insane and placed him in jail pending an examination. Sturdevant had been staying at the Russell House, where he kept his room darkened and spent the time brooding, mourning, and weeping. He told the sheriff that he knew he had been acting 'queer,' but said it was all due to the loss of sleep. 'When the bank busted,' he said, 'I didn't lose very much, but it was all I had. It has worried me a great deal, because I had counted on it to fall back on.'
“When the bank busted, I didn't lose very much, but it was all I had.”
Bank runs and the psychological toll of sudden financial ruin are timeless Seattle anxieties. This story captures the pre-social-safety-net reality, where losing a small savings account could mean immediate destitution and a descent into the city's jail system.
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