The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-05-22
Early Days in Wichita
and Kansas

The following is J. R. Mulvane's speech
delivered at the fourth annual session OF
the Kansas Bankers Association in this
city. Mr.. Mulvane is a pioneer banker
OF Topeka
Your humble servant came to Kansas in
1868, before the city of Wichita was. The
founder of Wichita, Hon Bill Griffen-
stein (peace to his ashes, one of my
early friends, had not yet conceived even
a paper plan OF Wichita. My first ac-
Quaintance with Hon. Bill was in the
spring of 1869. when he bought quite a
stock of merchandise from my friend, Col
Fielding johnson, who sold il to him
largely on credit To me it seemed a
very wild credit venture. Mr. Griffen-
stein wanted the stock TO I'll up his small
frontier shop at the Wichita Indian
agency l Suggested TO Col Johnson that
he might as well bid good bye to that
stock of merchandise. His answer was
that there was but one risk, and that was
death. / speak of this to show YOU in
what high esteem the founder of this
good city was held at that early day The
one railroad in Kansas was the Union
Pacific, E. D., running from the Missouri
river to Junction City. The boys inter
preted Z. D., as externally damned and
if you had taken a ride over ii you
would not have quarreled with the defini-
ton. 1t took you half day to run from
Kansas City to Topeka. and cost ten
cents a mile without refreshments. The
first railroad to Wichita was a branch
Of the Santa Fe from Newton, to the
stock of which your humble servant was
x.rnic oh ha
considerable labor. as our eastern friends
were doubtful of the good financial results
from the proposition and regarded it as
sort of wild cat venture, this building
road into the desert
My first business in Kansas was that of
buying and selling cattle, but in January,
1871, l fell from grace and went tenn
porarily into the old Topeka Bank and
SavingY Institution as cashier. The afore-
said bank was then the only state bank in
the capital city. There were two private
banks and one national, the Kansas Val
ley National. The Topeka Bank and Saw
ings Institution had paid in capital of
$50, 10000. with average deposits of S24o,-
10000. What we lacked in capital was
made up in the length of the name. We
opened for business at nine o'clock in the
morning, closed at noon for rest and
lunch, opened again at 1870 p. m, and
closed at $3.50 p. m. That was the old GUS
tom and very good one. l wish it was
yet the style. One of the first rules that l.
learned in the bank might be illustrated
by a nexperience related by my Scotch
friend, John Mcdonald While on a visit
to his native heath he went into bank
carb draft Of ot1rc on tho civ Rank
of London, England. They made a charge
for cashing it, and explained that they
did nothing for nothing" In other
words. We, as they, banked on the same
principle as that on which the negro's
coon trap worked-it caught EN- a-coming
and caught 'em a-going. We charged
twenty-five cents per hundred for ex-
change issued, twenty-five cents per hun
dred for exchange cashed, and where a
collection was made there was an added
charge of twenty-five cents per hundred.
We loaned money at two TO two and one
half per cent per month. If we loved a
man a great deal it was one and one
half and two. IL his paper was extra
ordinarily good and the collateral of the
same high quality it was one and one
half; and, strange to tell, the losses were
the least, in my experience, in proper
ton TO the amount of business done, that
they had ever been in my time in bank
ing business. The people had a higher
regard for their credit, paid their bills
more promptly and expected to protect
their credit or have none. punctuality be-
ing the order of the day
Then came that waning period of in
fated credit, the natural outgrowth of
our civil war with its immense expendi-
lures and waste OF material wealth. which