A Whatcom Bank Fails After Years of Bad Luck and Competition
P. K. Dickinson assigns the Whatcom County Bank's assets to creditors, blaming thin capital, ill health, and a crowded field of rival banks.
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.
P. K. Dickinson, proprietor of the Whatcom County Bank, has made an assignment of all his property for the benefit of creditors. Dickinson has expressed the opinion that all claims will be paid. Dickinson established the first bank in Whatcom County about twelve years ago, but had been out of the banking business for some years until 1893, when C. W. Waldron, of Fairhaven, started the Whatcom County Bank, making Mr. Dickinson cashier. When Waldron closed in April on account of his difficulty with the county treasurer and commissioners, Dickinson bought his business, but small capital, ill health and the competition of three other banks, two of which have been reopened since he started, have compelled his assignment, which occasions very little surprise.
“Small capital, ill health and the competition of three other banks ... have compelled his assignment.”
Community banks were the fragile infrastructure of 1890s boomtowns; a single failure could tie up local credit and savings. The story's mix of overexpansion, competition, and a banker's health sounds like a small-town version of modern consolidation anxiety.
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