Spokane National Bank Collapses
A financial contagion hits Eastern Washington as the failure of mining district branches forces the Spokane National Bank to close its doors.
The Spokane National bank, of which W. H. Taylor is president and Warren Hussey cashier, closed its doors Wednesday. The other banks of Spokane Falls tried to pull it through, but an examination showed the undertaking to be too great. The difficulty was precipitated by the failure of its three branches in the Coeur d'Alene mining district, namely, the bank of Wallace, the bank of Wardner and the bank of Murray.
“The other banks of Spokane Falls tried to pull it through, but an examination showed the undertaking to be too great.”
This bank failure mirrors the volatility of the mining boom years in the Inland Northwest, where regional banks were often over-leveraged on speculative investments in resource extraction, a fragility that still haunts regional economies dependent on single industries.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.