Irwin Union Bank & Trust.

• Author: Beck, Bill
• Position: Centennial Business

One of Indiana's oldest banks is today part of one of the state's fastest-growing financial services firms. After five generations of family control and nearly a century-and-a-third of history, the Columbus-based Irwin Union Bank plans its 21st century growth strategy around a tradition of banking expertise, innovation and the ability to take the long-term view of financial trends.

The history of the parent Irwin Financial Corp. began with the establishment of a community bank in Columbus 131 years ago. The institution's founder, Joseph I. Irwin, was born in 1824 on a farm outside of Columbus in rural Bartholomew County.

At the age of 22, Joseph I., as he was known to friends and family, decided to leave the farm and seek his fortune in town. He worked in a dry goods store in Columbus making $3 a week. After saving $150 and borrowing $500 more, the only money he would borrow in his life, Joseph I. began developing real estate in Columbus.

Joseph I. was able to pay back his loan and used his real estate profits to open his own mercantile store on Washington Street in Columbus. Other merchants began leaving their money in Joseph I.'s safe, known as "the safest safe in town." When Joseph I. was presented with a piece of sycamore bark requesting him to pay the bearer a sum out of a merchant's poke in the Irwin Mercantile Bank, he knew he had begun his work in the banking business.

Joseph I. established Irwin's Bank as a legal entity in 1871 after a local bank failed, a common occurrence in the then-frequent bank panics of the early 1870s. It was only six years after the end of the Civil War, and Columbus was a thriving merchant center for farmers in surrounding Bartholomew County. Deposits in Irwin's Bank were backed by Joseph I's own net worth. It would be another six decades before the federal government created federal deposit insurance for banks.

By the close of the 19th century, what was then known as Irwin's Bank was prospering. Joseph I.'s son, William G. Irwin, joined his father's business in 1889. The bank was doing so well that Joseph I. sold his interest in the dry goods business in 1895. In 1900, Irwin's Bank listed assets of $690,000, an immense sum of money at the time.

SECOND AND SUCCEEDING GENERATIONS

When Joseph I. died in 1910 at the age of 86, his son succeeded him as president. William G. Irwin, known as W.G., helped transform the face of Columbus through his work at Irwin's Bank. In 1919, he backed inventor Clessie Cummins...