Long before it was washed away by Ohio River floodwaters, there was a metal grate in the floor of the first bank building in Illinois. Really just a log house in Old Shawneetown, owner John Marshall, who’d made some money in the nearby salt mines, dedicated one room to banking operations. “There was a grate in the floor, and the money — gold, silver, paper money — would be lowered into a barrel in the basement,” said Tamara Briddick, of the Gallatin County Historical Society.
“And there was a guard down there who often slept on top of the barrel.” Even as one of the newest American settlements west of the Ohio River, the place was known as Old Shawneetown because it had been a longtime population center of indigenous Shawnee people. The town’s modern history stretches back to the late 1700s, when it was established by the federal government as home to a land office that would help solidify the new nation’s holdings in what was then called the Northwest Territory.
A few years later, Illinois became a state, and bustling river port Shawneetown became home to the state’s first bank in 1821. “We created the state, basically,” Briddick said. “That’s my personal opinion, but it all started right here.
” The Old Shawneetown Bank State Historic Site May 31, 2024, in Old Shawneetown, Illinois. Considered the oldest standing bank building in the state, the Old Shawneetown Bank recently was called one of the 2024 Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois b.
