10454. Farmers Trust Company (Maryville, MO)

Bank Information

Episode Type
Run → Suspension → Unsure
Bank Type
trust company
Start Date
April 3, 1930
Location
Maryville, Missouri (40.346, -94.872)

Metadata

Model
gpt-5-mini
Short Digest
d73c6206

Response Measures

Full suspension, Books examined

Other: Officers blamed frozen real estate loans as cause; prosecutor and press emphasize false rumors/slow run as immediate trigger.

Description

Articles report that false reports/rumors produced a slow run which precipitated the suspension of the Farmers Trust Company on or about April 3, 1930. Depositors were later discussing plans to reopen but no firm reopening date or successful resumption is reported in these pieces, so outcome is uncertain. OCR errors in Article 2 made some sentences garbled but did not affect core facts.

Events (2)
1. April 3, 1930 Run
Cause
Rumor Or Misinformation
Cause Details
False reports and circulating rumors about the bank's condition led to a slow run/withdrawals by depositors.
Measures
Officers called for a bank examiner, directors met, appealed publicly for confidence and attempted to reassure depositors; employees preserved records and officers pledged to account for all funds.
Newspaper Excerpt
Officers of the company have blamed false reports of the bank's condition which led to a slow run
Source
newspapers
2. April 3, 1930 Suspension
Cause
Rumor Or Misinformation
Cause Details
Management and local officials attributed the suspension to frozen real estate loans exacerbating the effect of false reports and a resulting run; prosecutor later said rumors caused suspension and threatened to prosecute rumor-mongers.
Newspaper Excerpt
OLD MARYVILLE BANK SUSPENDED BUSINESS TODAY... The Farmers Trust Company ... surprised the business here today.
Source
newspapers

Newspaper Articles (4)
1. April 8, 1930 Jefferson City Post-Tribune Jefferson City, MO
Article from Jefferson City Post-Tribune, April 8, 1930

Click image to open full size in new tab

Article Text

OLD MARYVILLE BANK SUSPENDED BUSINESS TODAY Closing Comes As Complete Surprise To Finance Com. Cantley. FROZEN REAL ESTATE LOANS Given As Cause-One of Oldest Institutions In N. W. Missouri. if Colorado officers would promise MARYVILLE MO., April 3.-(AP) to ask such a penalty. Capital -The Farmers Trust Company, one punishment is not legalized in Kanof the oldest financial institutions sas. in Northwest Missouri, surprised Confessions signed by each of the business here today. defendants but since repudiated, ad. Frozen real estate loans were said mitting the robbery and slaying, will by officers of the company to have be introduced as testimony, the prosecution has announced. The caused the closing. The company W.S capitalized for $200,000. Its re- men were brought here last night from Denver where they have been sources were given as $1,697,713; held for safe keeping. loans, $1,239,049; sh on sight exchange, $226,331; and total deposits. Caulfield For New The company officers include W. Senatorial Redistricting C. Pierce, a former member of the State Eleemosynary Board, presi(Continued from page 1) dent, and W. F. Phares, a former chairman of the Republican State ment a denunciation of its mullification. Committee, vice-president. "God help America when we start Surprise to Cantley. nullfying any part of the constlNotice of the closing of the Farmtution! We owe It to America to ers Trust Company at Maryville topreserve and protect the governday came as a complete surprise ment left to us by the fathers." to S. L. Cantley, state finance commissioner. The head of the finance Other speakers included Murat department said there had been no Boyle, Kansas City, president of indication that the closing was im- the State Bar Association, who depending. clared lawyers unfit to be members Details regarding the reason for of bar associations are unfit to closing of the institution were not practice law, and D. J. Madden. reecived by the commissioner, but Kansas City, who attacked "moral it is believed at the department that reformers." slow loans and deflated agricultural conditions in Nodaway county and Southern California has more vicinity, once one of the most thriv- acres under cultivation than any ing farming sections in the country, other states in the Union, and the are responsible. United States has more than any Commissioner Cantley has direct- other country except India. ed R. E. Shelby, a state bank exThere are 8.567,180 letters in the aminer, who lives at Maryville, to Bible. take charge of the bank. Several thousands of dollars of state automobile license receipts were on deposit in the bank, it was learned at the department of Charles Becker, secretary of state. Commisioner O. G. Steininger, of the motor vehicle registration bureau in the department said figures were not available here as to the exact amount of the deposit. Clean

2. April 9, 1930 The Kansas City Times Kansas City, MO
Article from The Kansas City Times, April 9, 1930

Click image to open full size in new tab

Article Text

MARTYR TO FINALLY DOWN ERS TRUST OF MARYVILLE, Other Strong Enough, Pierce, President Talk Had Gone for Years. MARYVILLE, Mo., April you know what?" was whisper table four ago. The bridge years "My husband talked game stopped. bank today and he the Farmers Trust Company was said on the verge failure." There was hush. The Farmers Trust Company? Maryville's Bank England? "Surely you don't mean out of the little babbling spring Main street gossip sprang the river whose floods, officers of the bank say tonight, inundated the Farmers Trust Company of Maryville. closed today. there motive behind the first utterance except the desire tell something surIt Nobody had prising. questioned the security Maryville's oldest bank, in the Nodaway County back Banks come and the trust had stood solidly in the community. But of Northwestern Missouri's crop failure last year? What lower estate values and pressed business conditions? What three estates totaling recently withdrawn from bank, pure business transaction with no taint malice. PIERCE BITTER AT GOSSIP. cried Pierce. bank, "this was cause baseless. idle gossip. but we could have all of but the gossip.' heard there was run on the standing up near the bank today and say things heard today they had sent for bank examiner.' the stream of gossip, the officers say, trickling curbstones Main and into the byways where means homes. directors related tonight that the attorney the gossip who had originated statutes forabout But the gossip The the said they could fight ceased, then broke out afresh. early Junetion Bank failed. "That failure." said Mr. "started with renewed vigor. We were Burlington but people would "Monday night we realized that several cut reserve the by We together and told them. They Tonight Mr. Pierce and William Phares, the bank called the together tell the affairs, thank and bid sad party, though Pierce served coffee guests. but not bitter Every expressed loyalty "Cal," the known and to little meeting had the Sunday school class's last party for departing teacher. embraces and protestations of loyalty and affection. The thin, gray-haired bookkeeper eyes behind spectacles. the porter. his cheek had million dollars, Mistah every cent EMPLOYEES NOT The employees still had some due them, but they did not complain. want said Mr. Phares, very the painting of the Grand Canal Venice. notify but time wise. above all things want you our honor clean. Every penny will be accounted Mr. Pierce tried to be jolly. his keeping his courage. "Everybody said. heaviest depositors have pressed their confidence us. Mrs. So offered acres land needed But we don't want borrow Mr. Pierce has spent fifty-one He remembered the ancients water boy (Continued on Second

3. April 11, 1930 The Springfield News-Leader Springfield, MO
Article from The Springfield News-Leader, April 11, 1930

Click image to open full size in new tab

Article Text

ISSUES WARNING ON BANK RUMORS Presecutor Threatens to Call Grand Jury if Talk Persists By The Associated Press MARYVILLE, Mo., April 10Paul R. Jones, Nodaway county prosecutor, this afternoon issued a statement threatening prosecution against persons discovered to be circulating rumors that banks in the county are experiencing runs. The prosecutor's statement was made as depositors of the closed Farmers Trust company which suspended business Tuesday were discussing plans to reopen the institution. Officers of the company have blamed false reports of the bank's condition which led to a slow run, for its Mr. Jones said he would ask that special county grand jury be called if rumors concerning other Nodaway county banks continue to circulate and that he would ask the jury if one is called to make thorough probe of the sources of the alleged rumors. A personal investigation, Mr. Jones said had revealed that there "is no run on any other bank in the

4. April 14, 1930 The Springfield News-Leader Springfield, MO
Article from The Springfield News-Leader, April 14, 1930

Click image to open full size in new tab

Article Text

MORE POWER TO THIS PROSECUTOR Paul B. Jones, prosecuting attorney of Nodaway county, is contemplating asking for special grand jury to investigate the source of rumors which caused the suspension of the Farmers Trust company at Maryville the first of last week. He will have rendered not only to his immediate community but to the entire state if he shall succeed in revealing the identity of the persons whose wagging tongues alone occasioned the shutting down of an institution which, as the St. Joseph put it, "was deeply rooted in the soil of Nodaway county, and against the management of which not one word of censure has been openly uttered by either depositors or the general public following its suspension. There are few practices that inflict more widespread injustices and hardships on community than that of gossiping about bank, which is powerless to defend itself against or long withstand the persistent onslaughts of poison-spreading, enemies, except in rare instances. And few are the banks which go down as the result of mismanagement or malfeasance on the part of those in control of its destinies. In at least nine cases out of ten bank failures or bank suspensions are directly due to ugly, ill-founded rumors, which nobody assumes responsibility for and which it is next to impossible to ferret to their source. If the Nodaway prosecutor shall demonstrate that he able to do he is one prosecutor out of million. All be who with him in his efforts to reveal the power culprits gossiped the Farmers Trust company Maryville into closing its doors!