The East Lansing State Bank
A Victor “cannonball” safe of the East Lansing State Bank, on display without explanation or context in the lobby of the Graduate Hotel, 133 Evergreen Ave., November 2021. Presumably, it stands not too far from its former position within the 1917 bank block, which the hotel building replaced. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth.
More than six decades after the Michigan Agricultural College was founded, and more than nine years after the city of East Lansing was chartered, the community still lacked any local banking institutions. The nearest banks were in Lansing, and while the capital city had several savings banks to choose from, not one had a branch office in the college city.
For a while some college-affiliated groups, such as the local societies, kept their accounts with the office of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, who was effectively M.A.C.’s chief financial officer. This informal arrangement, commonly known as the “college bank,” was convenient but not without its own set of issues.[LSJ, 1 Jun 1916, p. 2]
The college bank was certainly not up to the task of supporting the financial development of the rapidly growing new city, so in 1916 the East Lansing State Bank was established with an initial capitalization of $20,000. Of course, the majority of its officers and directors were associated with the College:
- Bank president Addison Makepeace Brown (1859–1931), former state senator, was Secretary of the Board of Agriculture 1902–1922. In a sense, the new bank was a way for Brown to supplant the college bank for which he held ultimate responsibility. He was the bank’s first chief executive until he left East Lansing in 1922, and remained on its board of directors until his death.[MSC Record, 36(7), Mar 1931, p. 8]
- Vice-president Jacob Schepers (1876–1955) was, at the time, head bookkeeper for M.A.C. (making Brown his boss in two roles) as well as mayor of East Lansing. He succeeded Brown as bank president in 1922.
- Director Anson Crosby Anderson (1865–1944, M.A.C. ’06) was Professor of Dairy Husbandry 1910–1920.[MAC Catalog (1916), pp. 14, 83. Minutes, 19 May 1920, p. 464]
- Director Edward Hildreth Ryder (1871–1939) was Associate Professor of History and Political Economics. He retired in 1938 after 33 years of service to the College.
Two other directors were heavy hitters in Lansing business. Bert J. Baker (1879–1946) was in real estate, rentals, insurance, and loans. He was on the boards of several corporations, and also served several terms as president of the Lansing Board of Realtors. Walter S. Foster (1877–1961) was “one of Michigan’s foremost legal authorities, humanitarian and descendant of a Lansing pioneer.” His law firm, begun in 1902, is still in business today as Foster Swift Collins & Smith. He was a longtime board member of Sparrow Hospital, where the 1957 wing of its flagship building on Michigan Avenue is named for him.[LSJ, 11 May 1946, p. 1; 1 Feb 1961, p. 1]
The seventh member of the board of directors was its third executive officer, cashier Arthur J. Nash (1877–1930). Nash came to East Lansing from the Lowell State Bank, located fifteen miles east of Grand Rapids, where he was assistant cashier. He brought along his best bookkeeper at Lowell, Helen Carson, to be the assistant cashier at East Lansing.[LSJ, 30 Mar 1930, p. 14]
The bank rented a storefront in the new Chase Block addition, three doors north of Grand River Avenue on the east side of Abbot Road. It opened to the public on May 31, 1916, and thirteen-year-old Pamela Brown, youngest daughter of the bank’s president, received the honor of being its first depositor. In a marathon twelve-hour opening-day session—including an evening reception—the bank registered 150 depositors who entrusted a grand total of $37,996.48 to its care. “The amount of business exceeded anything the bank officers had anticipated.”[LSJ, 1 Jun 1916, p. 2; 3 May 1923, p. 20]
Chase Block, viewed facing northeast circa 1919. This photo, likely taken after the bank moved out, shows the 1915 addition to the Chase Block along Abbot Road, with the original (c.1904) Grand River-facing block at far right beyond the trees. The bank occupied the third storefront from the near corner, the leftmost of the single-story bays. Photo Credit: East Lansing Public Library, reprinted in Miller, p. 25.
The storefront location was undersized even on opening day, and with the bank’s immediate success and rapid growth thereafter, its directors quickly sought out a better home. In early 1917 the “East Lansing Development Corporation” (ELDC)* was formed. Its officers and board of directors were exactly the same as those of the bank, so this was almost certainly a sole-purpose entity—that purpose being to acquire a site and construct a “bank block.” The ELDC took possession of director A. C. Anderson’s property, the former Hagadorn house on the northwest corner of Grand River and Evergreen Avenues. It moved the house to the rear of the property and built a two-story, six-bay commercial block in its place, at a cost of $30,000. The ELDC completed the build by October and the bank moved into its new space, at the prominent southeastern corner of the building, no later than January 1918.[LSJ, 7 Mar 1917, p. 1; 9 Jan 1918, p. 12]
A decent photo of the 1917 bank building in its heyday has not been found. The East Lansing State Bank once occupied the near corner, but by the time this image was taken in September 2017, about a month before its demolition, the building had long been derelict and vacant. Photo Credit: Google Street View.
Other tenants in the bank block included a grocery, an electrical repair shop, a drug store, the M.A.C. Book Buying Association, and a coal distributor. On the second floor, local physician Dr. Oscar Bruegel moved his practice from the rear rooms of his home on College Delta into the space above the bank.[LCD (1919 et seq.). Kestenbaum, p. 145]
After the ELDC closed out any remaining liabilities, its assets were commuted to the bank and it was dissolved sometime around 1921. But much like the American economy as a whole, East Lansing and its State Bank found the 1920s to be a period of great prosperity, so much so that within just eight years the bank had again outgrown its confines.
So they did it all over again—a new East Lansing Development Corporation was founded in 1926, again with its board of directors matching that of the bank. E. H. Ryder, by then Dean of Liberal Arts and former mayor of East Lansing (1918–1925), was chosen president; Professor A. J. Clark, head of the chemistry department, vice-president; and B. A. Faunce, city clerk, secretary–treasurer. Its directors were O. J. Ayrs, Bert Baker, Edward Gibbons, O. E. Reed, Jacob Schepers, W. N. Sweeney, George Bissell, and A. J. Nash.[LSJ, 8 Jul 1926, p. 2]
This time, the ELDC bought the former Woodbury house, standing on Grand River Avenue between Abbot and Evergreen, from the Hesperian society for $100,000. The house was moved to an empty lot owned by Ayrs at 323 Ann Street so that the ELDC could construct a much grander, four-story “new bank block” complete with a bigger home for the bank at 100 West Grand River Avenue, a combination motion picture and vaudeville theater, several other commercial spaces, and approximately nineteen office/apartment spaces in the upper floors. (For more on the construction and the controversy it engendered, see the State Theatre.) The design by Orlie Munson was estimated to cost $390,000 to build—thirteen times that of its predecessor—a clear indication of the bank’s booming health. The “Abbott” was completed in November 1927. Among its first tenants, Dr. Bruegel moved his practice to an office space on the second floor, where it remained until his retirement in 1949.[LSJ, 17 Jun 1926, p. 1. Kestenbaum, p. 145]
Grand River Avenue, viewed facing east circa 1929. The East Lansing State Bank has moved to its new location at the far end of the four-story block while its old one, at left, has been taken by the East Lansing Building & Loan Association and a Western Union office. Despite the air of permanence exuded by its prominent signage, the Lewis Brothers College Shop was closed by 1933. Photo Credit: Archives of Michigan, via MSU CAP blog.
Like its predecessor, the second ELDC was a single-purpose entity. It ceased to exist around 1934.
The East Lansing State Bank continued to operate and grow alongside the city for decades. Banc One Corporation of Columbus, Ohio, acquired the bank in 1987, changing its name to “Bank One, East Lansing.” Banking operations moved out of the 100 West Grand River location around August 2004, purportedly in anticipation of a new building project that never happened. Both the Abbott building and its predecessor bank block stood empty and blighted for about a decade until their demolition in October 2017. A new, combination retail and apartment high-rise called “The Abbot”—with the correct spelling of T.C. Abbot’s name—and a ten-story boutique hotel operated by Graduate Hotels were completed on their respective sites in 2021.[LSJ, 6 Aug 2004, p. 34]
The second East Lansing State Bank building, aka “The Abbott,” circa mid-to-late 1960s. Within a few years its façade would be dramatically modernized. Photo Credit: East Lansing Public Library, republished by ELi.
