Boatmen’s Bank
by George Bailey
George Knight Budd founded Boatmen’s Bancshares, the oldest bank west of the Mississippi River. Derivative of Boatmen’s Savings Institution, the mission of Boatmen’s Bancshares Inc. was to provide banking and investment benefits to members of St. Louis’s working class. Budd was something of a visionary. Boatmen’s proved lucrative for the city of St. Louis (Close to Branson MO) fairly rapidly. Owing to numerous setbacks, such as the horrendous Cholera Epidemic of 1849 and the robbery of the bank’s safe in 1854, allegedly executed by the bank secretary Joseph Thornton, Boatmen’s endured some ups and downs throughout the 1850’s and 60’s, but it always recovered. Even Black Friday was not enough to do Boatmen’s in, and it remains today a leading banking competitor in the United States.