The Day Everett Lined Up at the Bank
In the Panic of 1907, rumor emptied Everett's savings accounts in an afternoon — until the bank stacked gold coin in the window.
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.
Rumor, traveling no man knows how, brought a line of depositors to the doors of the First National Bank at the corner of Hewitt and Colby before ten o'clock yesterday morning. By noon the line reached down Colby to the alley, and the officers of the bank adopted the expedient of stacking gold coin and currency in the windows, where all in the street might see it. By four o'clock, the line had melted away, and a number of those who had withdrawn their savings in the morning were observed returning to redeposit them, somewhat sheepishly, before the close of business.
“Stacking gold coin in the windows, where all in the street might see it.”
A bank run driven by rumor, calmed by a show of reserves — the mechanics haven't changed, only the speed. In 2023 it took hours online; in 1907 it took a morning on Colby Avenue.
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