[Volume XXV
T H /׳:	C H / Г A (; О В А IV К К R
28
Northwest Banking¡ News
July 15th approximately $64,000,000. The total does not include the figures for the national banks, which would swell the figures by many millions. The loans are stated to be approximately $10,000,000. Loans, deposits, and cash on hand do not differ $1,000,000 since the call of May 14th. For the first time since the reports were instituted the number of banks replying to the call exceeded 200, there being 201 that returned statements.
Banker Vincent Home from Alaska
W. D. Vincent, cashier of the Old National, who has just returned from a two weeks’ trip to Alaska, and the novel experience of seeing a whaler tow in a big finback whale which he had just harpooned. The huge mammal was 25 feet in length and was worth about $1,000. Three whales were captured by the same whaler in one afternoon.
Banking Notes
Trustee Crilly, of the Exchange Bank, Blaine, Wash., has paid a dividend of 10 per cent, and it is estimated that assets will permit of the payment of another dividend to creditors for a like amount, making disbursement of 26 per cent on the liabilities.
First International at Kennewick, Wash., has opened for business in a fine new two-story concrete building. The capital stock is $25,000 and officers are: S. M. Lockerby, president; C. W. Lockerby, vice-president; H. E. Johnson, cashier.
The Citizens' Savings and Loan Society, Spokane, of which J. Grier Long is president, and R. E. Porterfield secretary, has just declared its eleventh consecutive semiannual dividend on a basis of 7 per cent per annum. The society has been in existence six years. The recent financial depression did not affect its business to any extent, as the present dividend indicates.
F. L. Stewart, cashier of the Kelso State Bank, of Kelso, Wash., and S. S. Strain, president of the First National Bank, of the same city, have filed declarations for candidacy for state senatorship. The first is on the republican and the latter on the democratic ticket.
The Traders State Bank is being organized at Toppenish, Wash., and John D. Cornett, of • North Yakima, will be manager. Arthur Coffin, of North Yakima, and Frank Williams, of Toppenish, are among the leading stockholders.
The State Bank of Rosalia, Wash., has been authorized to begin business with a capital stock of $10,000.
Hufty & Cloud, Eastern capitalists, have engaged quarters at Mount Vernon, Wash., for embarking in the banking business.
V
F. D. Countiss Elected to Membership
Frederick D. Countiss of the firm of S. B. Chaplin & Co., New York and Chicago, has been elected to membership on the New York-stock exchange.
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The Farmers’ State Bank
The Farmers’ State Bank of Clay Centre, Kan., reports capital of $30,000, surplus $2,300, and deposits of $100,000. Samuel E. Reynolds is president; J. A. Hanna, vice-president, and George W. Hanna, cashier.
This is a condition inviting to railroads and other great interests desiring to make extensions and betterments. Fortunately, the Inland Empire was able to maintain 4n enduring and solid show of prosperity all through the depression following the panic of last October. That has made for confidence, and that confidence is now expressed in these big undertakings.”
New Washington Bank
State National of Harrington, Wash., received deposits of $20,600 on its opening day. The bank is organized by Harrington and Spokane men, Thomas H. Brewer, vice-president of the Fidelity National, being vice-president of the new institution. Mr. Brewer was present at the opening of the bank. He says that crops in that part of the Big Bend are much better than was expected, adding:
“This year’s crop shows the results of good farming. The farmer who plowed his ground deep and planted his seed right is getting a good yield, about 20 bushels an acre, while the farmer who put his crop in poorly is not getting more than 10 bushels. A great deal of io-'bushel wheat is being harvested. However, the price is 80 to 81 cents, and the growers will make nearly as much as last year. Fall wheat is excellent.”
Selling Out Closed Bank
A. C. Clausen, who is negotiating the saie of the defunct Inland Bank , of Spokane to Oliver M. Macdonald of Scotland, has received a cablegram from Mr. Macdonald that he left London for Spokane, August 15th. He has deposited $1,000 as a guarantee of faith to pay $10,000 for the bank, giving the depositors 25 per cent cash or 33 1-3 per cent stock in the reorganized institution. At the request of Mr. Clausen the court has allowed until September 18th for applications to purchase the bank. Mr. Clausen says that $20,000 of the deposits are now represented by the signers of the agreement to turn the bank over to Mr. Macdonald on the above basis. As the liabilities of the bank were only $33,000, Mr. Clausen claims considerable more than a majority.
Buying Spokane Realty
E. J. Barney, a millionaire of Dayton, O., where he is identified with the Barney & Smith Car Co., which employs 5,000 men, who has been in Spokane a week the guest of Graham B. Dennis, a director of the Exchange National, has invested $125,000 in the Green Building in Riverside Avenue. Mr. Barney is the owner of the sites of the Holly-Mason Building in Railroad Avenue and the Kenneth Hotel at Riverside Avenue and Bernard Street, and also hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of real estate in other Pacific Northwest cities. He is well pleased with his Spokane holdings, which he considers among the best he has made in this district.
Northwest Banking Statistics
Spokane’s bank clearings for the week ended August 14th, show an increase over the corresponding week of last year of 8.6 per cent. The total is $6,133,804, as against $5,647,895 for the same week last year, an increase of $485,909. For the first seven months in 1908 the clearings aggregate $163,339,371, as against $168,436,431 for the same period in 1907. According to the tabulation just completed by A. W. Engle, state bank examiner of Washington, the state banks had on deposit
Spokane, Wash., August 26.—Announcement is made that the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, which recently authorized a bond issue of $300,000,000, has planned extensions into the North Pacific Coast country which will cost more than $100,-000,000. The system is controlled by James J. Hill, who already owns three lines in the Spokane country and the Northwest. This announcement shows an encouraging degree of confidence on the part of the great railroad builders in the future of this rich and partly developed country. Additional evidence that Eastern capitalists have an abiding confidence in the resources and future of the Pacific Northwest is contained in the announcement just made that the Washington Water Power Company, of this city, has entered actively upon the development of its 30,000-horse-power property at the Little Falls in the Spokane River, 25 miles below Spokane. This big undertaking will call for an expenditure of about $1,000,000, and following so quickly the company’s recent development of additional power at Post Falls, Ida., and the installation of a steam auxiliary plant in Spokane, at an expense of almost $2,000,000, is proof that the Eastern stockholders are assured that there will not be even a temporary check to the swift development of the Spokane country.
British Columbia Coal for Spokane
Seventeen sections or .10,880 acres of coal lands in Eastern British Columbia, within 300 miles of Spokane, will be developed by the Corbin Coal and Coke Company, just incorporated in Spokane with a capital stock of $1,000,-000. The incorporators who are also trustees of the company are D. C. Corbin, president of the Spokane International Railway Company and builder of the Spokane Falls and Northern Railroad; Austin Corbin, II., A. H. Sperry, Albert Allen, E. J. Roberts, and G. IT. Martin, of Spokane; Alfred Page, of Wardner, Ida., and J. K. O. Sherwood, of New York. The lands to be developed are in the Crows Nest Pass country and have been opened sufficiently to show it is a big proposition.
The articles of incorporation state the objects to be not only to engage in coal mining, but to transact all kinds of business, such as building and operating railroads, dealing in lumber, developing water and electric power, and, in fact, any enterprise which it might be desired to engage in at any time in the future. The British Columbia Railroad Company in which D. C. Corbin and his associates are the principal stockholders, will build a line from McGilvary on the C. P. R., to the property, 14 miles.
James C. Cunningham Quoted
James C. Cunningham, secretary and manager of the Union Trust Company of Spokane, said in discussing the foregoing:
“There is every indication that we are just entering upon a period of extraordinary investment of capital in new projects in the Inland Empire, and that the financial panic of last October was a blessing in disguise. Under the inflated conditions then existing in the East, it was impossible to borrow money for railroad and other big undertakings. Now the country is full of capital, eager for investment. A member of the firm of J. Pierpont Morgan & Co. said in New York that ‘the bond market ;s in better shape than it has been in years. I never saw the public so eager for good bonds.׳