The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-08-12
A ROMANCE OF BANKING.
Rare Good Fortune Of Chicago Stock
holders Twenty Years After
n Failure.


closed its doors and a receiver was APP
pointed to satisfy the depositors. Some
of the stockholders feared an immedi-
ate assessment for the payment of LA
bilities and offered to give their stock
to anyone who would assume its obliga-
tions. To-day this stock is held at near
ly double it's par value, and it is re-
garded as gild-edged security. Within
five years, although the bank has re-
ceived no deposits, made no loans, is
sued no currency, sold no drafts, it
has paid two dividends toits stockhold-
ers and promises many more. The
very name of the bank has been for
gotten, except by few gray-headed
men who are personally interested in
it's affairs. Moreover, it is unique in
being a corporation having large assets
and no liabilities beyond the obligation
to its stockholders.
The earliest report on the condition
of the bank, made by the receiver, Col.
Huntington w. Jackson, showed that
the nominal assets were about $780,
900 and the debts were nearly S1,000,-
BOO, leaving a nominal $SoO,0O0 to pay
the stock liability of S750,000. Onpaper
this looked most encouraging, but
close examination showed that many
of the loans of the bank, made in flush
times, were secured by collaterals of
uncertain value, and real estate sched-
uled at boom prices and taken as the
only available payment for money
loaned. There was too much "slow"
paper and not enough short" paper.
OF the real estate, one tract of 100
acres lay on barren sand ridge near
the lake shore and nearly ten miles
southeast of the city hall, in wholly
unsettled part of suburb. Another
tract of As acres was nearly as far to
the west of the city on the bare fat
! prairie, where there was little prospect
of it's ever being anything more than
cabbage plant. Still another piece OF
property lay far out in the southwest
erp portion of the city, in Q region as
I yet almost wholly undeveloped and
promising little immediate growth, e3-
cept in taxes and special assessments
/ There was score of other lots and
| parcels of land, some in New York city,
and great quantity of paper, much of
it more or less doubtful or worthless.
In fact, it seemed to some of the 90
stockholders that it would hardly pay
the bank to retain its property and
meet the expenses of management.
By the process known as "squeez-
ing" and the sacrifice of some of the
choicer pieces of real estate the re-
ceiver managed to pay before the close
of 1881 the depositors the face value
of their claims. A year later they re-
ceived their interest in full, and the
stockholders were left. nearly five years
after the close of the bank, with score
of pieces of expensive real estate, most
Of which had comparatively little pres
ent cash value, and quantity of doubt
full claims and lawsuits, the legacy of
the panic.
But Chicago was growing. The sub
urb In which the hundred-acre tract
was located became part of the city.
A cable line reached down and almost
touched it; an electric line dropped
passengers Immediately in front of it;
an elevated railroad approached it
within half dozen blocks. Early in
the nineties the worlds fair found root
In jackson park, which adjoined the
tract Immediately on the north. A city
of great hotels, apartment houses and
residences sprang suddenly into ex-
istence around it, and Chicago was a
city far out beyond the park.
In July, 1891, the receiver called the
stockholders together and laid before
them an offer of $l,Ooo,O 900 for the de-
spised 100 acres of land, and the stock
holders, upon mature deliberation, re-
jected it, feeling that it would be worth
much more few years later. If the
offer had been accepted it would have
paid of not only the entire capital
stock of $750,0o0, but it would have left
comfortable $25o,000 to be divided
among the stockholders for their pa
tience. In a manner hardly less re-
markable the 45-acre cabbage patch be-
came valuable. Car lines passed it, the
suburb of Oak Park, itself a consider
able city, grew out around it, and every
year has added thousands of dollars
to its value.
And so it happened that in 1898 the
receiver was able to pay a dividend of
ten per cent to the stockholders, and
he followed It IN 1895 with second div