The Palouse State Bank Fails, Leaving a $30,000 Hole
A receiver is appointed after the bank reports $170,000 in liabilities against $140,000 in assets, with many notes described as practically worthless.
Colfax — Superior Judge H. W. Canfield has appointed J. K. McCormack, president of the Security State Bank of Palouse, receiver of the Palouse State Bank, upon application of the Old National Bank of Spokane. The statement accompanying the application for a receiver places the liabilities at $170,000 and the assets at $140,000, of which $50,000 is shareholders' liabilities and of the balance, $90,000 is in notes due the bank, many of which, it is alleged, are practically valueless. The Palouse State Bank was organized in 1903 by C. H. Patten and G. M. Swartwood with $50,000 capital stock.
“The statement accompanying the application for a receiver places the liabilities at $170,000 and the assets at $140,000...”
Before federal deposit insurance, a bank failure could wipe out a town's savings overnight. The Palouse collapse shows how thin the line was between booster optimism and bust in the early twentieth-century West.
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