The First National Bank of Litchfield long occupied a historic 1816 building on North Street in Litchfield. In 1891, another supplementary building was constructed on nearby West Street. Until recently, it contained the bank’s Trust Division and Investment Management Services. In 2010, the First National Bank of Litchfield merged with Union Savings Bank, founded in 1866.
Happy New Year from Historic Buildings of Connecticut!!! According to Vol. I of Waldo’s History of Bridgeport and Vicinity (1917), the Mechanics and Farmers Savings Bank of Bridgeport
received its charter in 1871, but was not officially organized until July, 1873, when the incorporators held their first meeting and elected a board of trustees; George W. Hayes, president; Andrew Burke and George Lewis, vice presidents; and Lyman S. Catlin, secretary and treasurer. It was started as an East Bridgeport bank and was located on West Washington Avenue, near East Main Street. From there the bank was moved to the basement of the Connecticut Bank Building, corner of Main and Wall streets, then to the Barnum Building, 407 Main Street, then to the City Bank Building, Wall Street, and finally to the new and attractive structure at 930 Main Street.
In 1930, the Bank constructed a new building, designed by Ernest G. Southey, in front of an earlier brick-faced building. Mechanics & Farmers Savings Bank failed in 1991 and the building has been vacant for many years. The Beaux Arts structure, which was owned for several years by the City of Bridgeport, was used in 2007 as a location for the film Righteous Kill, during which their was a minor fire in the bank’s lobby. Fletcher-Thompson Inc., an engineering and design firm that moved out of Bridgeport in 2002, plans to return to the city, renovating and moving into the former bank building by 2014.
At 22 Court House Square in Norwich is the 1910 building of the Uncas-Merchants National Bank. It is located along what was Norwich’s “Banker’s Row,” with other bank buildings on either side. The building was constructed for the Merchants National Bank, which had been organized in 1823. In 1928, Merchants merged with the Uncas National Bank, which had been organized in 1852 and incorporated in 1855. Before the merger, the Uncas National Bank had been located in a 1913 building on Shetucket Street. The Uncas-Merchants National Bank merged with the Hartford National Bank & Trust in 1955. The bank building is now used as offices.
Incorporated in 1881, the First National Bank in Wallingford was originally located in an 1882 Renaissance Revival building at 35 South Main Street. In 1921, the bank moved to a new Beaux-Arts building at 9 North Main Street. This building was bought by the town in 1960 and was the location of the town’s electric division payment office and tax collector’s office until 1989. It has since housed a drug store, bookstore and now a restaurant.
The building of the Second National Bank of New Haven, founded in 1855, was built at 129-31 Church Street in 1912-1913. It was the bank‘s fourth home, the Post Office and courthouse building next door having replaced its previous one on Church Street. The new building was designed by Starrett & Van Vleck of New York.
The City Savings Bank of Bridgeport was incorporated in 1859. As explained in Samuel Orcutt’s A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport (1886):
About the beginning of the year 1884 it was felt by the trustees that the rooms on Wall street which had hitherto been rented for banking purposes, though twice enlarged, had become entirely inadequate, and that the City Savings Bank should possess a permanent home of its own. After careful deliberation it was decided to purchase one-half the lot of the Bridgeport National Bank, on the corner of Main and Bank streets, and that both institutions should unite in erecting a structure to be known as the United Bank building, of Bridgeport.
The 1885 United Bank Building was torn down in 1912 and replaced by a new Classical Revival-style City Savings Bank building, completed in 1914. Both structures had been designed by architect Warren R. Briggs.
The 1911 Thames National Bank building is at 16-20 Chelsea Harbor Drive (formerly Shetucket Street) in downtown Norwich. As described in A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut, Volume 2 (1922):
The Thames Bank was the second institution of the kind chartered in Norwich, with a capital of $200,000, in 1825. By its charter the bank was obliged to purchase the stock of the Norwich Channel Company, and “maintain a depth of at least ten feet of water in the channel of the Thames river at common and ordinary tides.” The charter also permitted the bank to collect toll from all vessels coming to Norwich. These provisions of the charter were complied with so long as the bank operated under its State charter. The bank was also obliged to receive deposits from the State school fund, ecclesiastical societies, colleges and schools, at par, and pay on such deposits such dividends as were paid to their stockholders. The first bank rooms were on Main street
[…] Prosperity made it necessary to add to the facilities of the bank in order to properly meet the demands of increasing business, and in 1862 the bank erected enlarged quarters on Shetucket street. In 1864 the Thames Bank was succeeded by the Thames National Bank […] Its National Bank charter was renewed in 1884 and again in 1904, the home of the bank centering in the same quarters on Shetucket street until 1911, when the present building begun in 1910 was finished and occupied.
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