Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-01-29

National Bank, as it eventually grew
| to be, has marked the days and the
weeks and the months of hundred
years as the pioneer bulwark of hnan-
! cial Harrisburg and Central Pennsyl-
vania. ...
May 8, 1914, the Harrisburg Bank
was organized; May ., 1915, will mark
hundred years of activity, for
the Harrisburg National Bank, it's
child. These be the days of moment
Gus hundredth anniversaries of many
an enterprise and the occasions are
celebrated in variety of ways. But
the passing of the century milestone
is not marked by any especial demon
| stration on the part of the Harrisburg
National Bank. 1t has it's own place
! in the history of Harrisburg and Cen
tral Pennsylvania; 1t has even con-
| tributed it's share to the making of
history, in fact.
The Progress of a Bank
Progress of banking methods it has
followed from its inception. Long ago
it adopted a State charter to replace
n branch" bank, and fifty years later
it accepted national relation because
that was the best way to extend it's
| service. In like manner, it has just
| related itself to the new regional re-
serve banking system.
"A bank that has never failed to
meet an obligation, has never known
a run and has never passed divi-
| dend." What need to celebrate!
In connection with the passing of
| its hundredth anniversary, however,
| the Harrisburg National Bank has
had compiled an interesting history
of itself by Helen Bruce Wallace. a
former well-known Harrisburg news
paper and magazine writer The story
| privately published by the bank con-
| tains some fifty pages, is replete with
rare old cuts and prints of the long
| dead directors and presidents and
other officers of the first bank OF Har-
| risburg, who occupied so proud a
| place not only in the financial world
but in the civic and even political
history of the city, State and nation.
1t is called "a Century of Banking"
Its Place in the Community
Aside from it's value as history OF
the Oldest bank in the central section
of the State and one of the oldest in
| the country, the history Is OF more
| than ordinary value because OF it's
discussion of the earlier days of Har-
risburg and of the relation the officials
of the bank bore in the development
of the city and the State through the
years.
The Harrisburg National Bank has
meant much to Harrisburg, but not
| alone in a financial way, although an
| old Centennial -'ear guide-book Of
1876 modestly states that it 'is univer-
| sally esteemed one of the best bank
ing institutions of the Common
wealth." Behind the bank was the
ever-present, constantly-gro civic
| pride of the men who occupied the
| high places in the conduct OF it's ef-
fairs. and that feeling naturally was
bound to have its effect. Hence,
whenever home industry could De
encouraged and developed, or the well
| fare of the citizens collectively or in
| dividually improved the influence of
the Harrisburg spirit" extended, the
| Harrisburg National Bank and the
men concerned in it's activities were
behind the movement
Ono Far July Day
1t was on faraway July day
July 6, as history has tin 1914, that
the bank first opened it's doors. Eu-
rope was about preparing to settle q
mighty momentous problem then-as
now; the last pages of the story Of a
imam of destiny were about being
written, and comparatively youthful
America was preparing to teach the
mother country the bitter lesson that
the parents cannot stop the merchant
men of it's progeny on the high seas
just because 1t is the parent.
Harrisburg was but a wee town in
those days, but it was even then of
such proportions that the need of a
home bank was felt. Four years be-
fore. in fact there was talk Of such
need. In 1914 Harrisburg boasted of
some $500 inhabitants.
When Harrisburg Was a Baby
The city boundaries were different,
quite different, from the stretch