Time Machine: Cedar Rapids Savings Bank

“The question of a savings bank is one of vital importance to a city of the dimensions of Cedar Rapids,” The Gazette stated in March 1883, when a new bank, Cedar Rapids Savings Bank, was organized in the city.

Nine prominent men started the bank with the combined capital of $50,000: Lawson Daniels, Charles B. Soutter, John T. Hamilton, James L. Bever, Robert Palmer, Frank C. Hormel, George W. Bever, Arthur T. Averill and Frank J. Upton. The bank’s stockholders elected all of them.

The directors, in turn, elected Hamilton as president; Soutter as first vice president; and Daniels as second vice president.

The new bank moved into the small space that had housed the former City National Bank on First Street SE on May 1, 1883.

While Cedar Rapids already had banks to serve its larger businesses, none of them catered to the common worker. The Cedar Rapids Savings Bank intended to receive small deposits from workers and those with limited incomes to help them save for the future.

New building

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Twelve years later, Cedar Rapids Savings announced it would construct a new building at the corner of Third Street and Third Avenue SE.

An engraving of the new bank building was published in The Gazette on May 18, 1895. Designed by architects Josselyn & Taylor, the six-story building, when completed, would be the tallest in the city.

The building was 140 feet long but only 30 feet wide. The main entrance was through an archway on Third Street. Machinery rooms and store cellars were in the basement.

The first two stories were faced with purple jasper. Above that was St. Louis brick with molded red brick. The corner featured an octagon with a shallow balcony on the sixth floor.

The bank occupied the first floor. The upper floors had office suites. An elevator was available at the central entrance with stairs around it.

Cedar Rapids Savings was the first Cedar Rapids bank to own its own building.

Expansion, top-down

The narrow building was set to expand in the summer of 1909 when a new addition was begun. Following excavation for the basement, concrete supports were installed and the steel frame erected.

The ensuing construction garnered extra interest because it began at the top. Contractors Charles Bartlett and Spencer Kling were questioned about the unusual building method.

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“When asked why work was begun at the top, Mr. Bartlett said that one very important reason was demonstrated in the fact that his men have not lost a day during the last cold spell, although all the other construction work that was being prosecuted in the city had been suspended,” The Gazette reported. “Beginning work at the top permits a cover to the building at once, and as the work is prosecuted downward, the stories are at once enclosed, and there is work to be done, no matter the condition of the weather, for neither cold nor rain stops the work.”

Stoves were placed on the upper floors when they were ready for finishing work. When the rooms were sufficiently warm, plastering commenced.

Great Depression impact

Until 1923, Cedar Rapids Savings and Merchants National banks held joint directorships. But that year, the directors each decided to affiliate with the bank most in line with their business interests. Merchants was a commercial bank. Cedar Rapids Savings was a savings and trust bank.

In the meeting that separated the two banks, it was decided Cedar Rapids Savings Bank would change its name to Cedar Rapids Savings Bank and Trust Company.

The Great Depression forced Cedar Rapids Savings and Trust to close its doors in the early 1930s, along with another bank, American Trust & Savings.

A Sept. 9, 1934, Gazette story by managing editor Verne Marshall, headlined “Bank Battle is Won,” reported the federal government had unfrozen the banks’ deposits.

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The banks reopened again on May 5 in the former Cedar Rapids Savings building with a new name, Guaranty Bank & Trust. It had about $1.5 million in deposits. Van Vechten Shaffer was the founding president of Guaranty.

In its first year, Guaranty, in an agreement with artist Grant Wood, arranged for the bank to display paintings by Iowa artists on a wall of the bank’s main floor. Each artist’s works were displayed for two months.

Bank sale

In 1969, controlling interest in the bank was sold to Harold M. Becker, Charles Loomis and Scott McIntyre. Becker became president of Guaranty’s board of directors in 1972.

In 2017, QCR Holdings of Moline, parent company of Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust (CRBT), purchased Guaranty Bank for $44.2 million, ending Guaranty’s presence in Cedar Rapids.

Guaranty’s downtown building at 222 Third St. SE was put up for sale. Architect and developer Steve Emerson bought the bank building as well as the nearby former theater and restaurant in 2023 for $2.8 million. He plans to retain historic features of the building as he transforms it into a multiuse development.

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