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Eel River National Bank

OUR LOCAL BANK had its birth out of the rubble of the great depression. When the market crashed in 1929, Willow Mills wasn’t much affected. Times weren’t too great here to start with. There was a Savings & Loan that had built a bank on the corner of Main and Market, but when it went under it was more because no one had any money in it than because of the market. And the building stood derelict for close to eight years before anything went into it again.

That was when things were getting hot again. We’d gone through prohibition, and even though the it was legal to buy and sell alcohol in the State of Indiana since 1933, there wasn’t any place closer than Wabash to buy, nor anyone in Willow Mills brave enough to stand up to Elsie Hewitt’s memory and sell it.

But that doesn’t mean that no one in Willow Mills had it. And that is how the Eel River National Bank and Vault Company came into existence.

The official meeting of the Fraternal Order of the Patrons of Husbandry had just ended. Several of the farmers left the Old Lutheran Church where they’d met. (This was before the Grange Hall had been built.) They took a detour out through the cemetery. It was a casual stroll that had nothing more imposing to it than men examining the stones as they followed Isaac Taylor to the grave of his dearly departed wife Leah. They stood by as Isaac knelt by his wife’s gravestone to pay his respects. Then he rocked the headstone forward and reached beneath to extract a bottle of Bourbon.

Isaac rose with the bottle in hand, uncorked it and took a swallow. Then he poured out a few drops onto his wife’s grave with the words “Here’s mud in your eye, Leah,” and passed the bottle around to the rest of the fellows who’d accompanied him out there to “pay their respects.” They chatted as they passed the bottle around and began to discuss how it would be much better if they had a more secure and discreet place to stash their bottles. This week it was at Leah’s grave. Next week it would be in the fire station. The following week at the train station. Each member had his own special hiding place and reason to stop off there on the way home from the monthly Grange meeting.

That was when they pointed to the old bank and one of them said, “We should just keep our hooch in the old vault.” There was a lot of nodding around in the circle.

Well, once an idea is given voice, it seems to take on a life of its own. Within six months, the Eel River National Bank and Vault Company had been born. To make things legitimate, each member of the Grange put up $50 on deposit. They did a little remodeling of the old bank and expanded the vault as its major feature. It has just two teller windows. They set the hours for the bank to be Saturdays from noon till 6:00 and hired Isaac to be the banker. Each Saturday just before 6:00, a different member of the Fraternity would go to the bank with his vault key and remove his bottle to take to the Grange meeting and after the meeting he would serve refreshments. Isaac filled the secondary function of collecting “dues” from the members to replenish that brother’s supply in the vault and bank any profits to add to their deposits.

Well, as the war approached, folks became more interested in banking. The original stockholders incorporated and expanded the banking hours for daily business. The vault became a resting place for the money and valuables of the people of Willow Mills beyond the stash of liquor. They hired Henry Post after Isaac got too old to handle the business, and he succeeded in turning the Eel River National Bank and Vault Company into a real bank, conforming to the regulations and becoming FDIC insured. Ownership of the bank is still in the hands of the seven families who founded it in 1937.

They leave the management up to banking professionals these days, and not many folks keep liquor in the vault anymore. But the greatest feature of the bank is the large vault in which for $50 you can still rent a safe deposit box large enough to keep your valuable papers and a couple bottles in.

One point of the charter, however, has never been changed. The Bank will always be open until 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays “to accommodate the special banking needs of the community’s rural population.”

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