American National Bank, Bartlesville, OK (Charter 7032)

Postcard with view of Johnstone Avenue and the Union National Bank of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, ca1920s. The bank was the old American National Bank's home, located on the corner of Third Street and Johnstone Avenue. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions, www.ha.com

American National Bank, Bartlesville, OK (Chartered 1903 - Liquidated 1910)

Town History

Bartlesville is a city in Washington County and Osage County, Oklahoma. Bartlesville is 47 miles north of Tulsa and 18 miles south of the Kansas border. It is the county seat of Washington County. The Caney River runs through Bartlesville. The population was 37,290 at the 2020 census. In 1900 the population was 698, growing to 14,763 by 1930.

Bartlesville is the primary city of the Bartlesville Micropolitan area, which consists of Washington County and had a population of 51,843 in 2018. A small portion of the city is in Osage County. The city is also part of the Tulsa Combined Statistical Area, with a population of 1,151,172 in 2015.

Bartlesville is notable as the longtime home of Phillips Petroleum Company. Frank Phillips founded Phillips Petroleum in Bartlesville in 1905 when the area was still an Indian Territory. The company merged with Conoco as ConocoPhillips and later split into the two independent companies, Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips. Both companies have retained some operations in Bartlesville, but they have moved their corporate headquarters to Houston.

Bartlesville had six National Banks chartered during the Bank Note Era, and four of those banks issued National Bank Notes. The four note issuing banks were First National Bank of Bartlesville, OK (Charter 5310), Bartlesville National Bank/First NB in Bartlesville, OK (Charter 6258), American National Bank, Bartlesville, OK (Charter 7032), and Union National Bank, Bartlesville, OK (Charter 9567).

Bank History

Advertisement from November 1907 for the American National Bank of Bartlesville, Indian Territory.

• Organized September 22, 1903
• Chartered November 5, 1903
• Opened for business December 28, 1903
• Liquidated April 4, 1910
• Succeeded by 9567 (Union National Bank, Bartlesville, OK)

In August 1903, plans were in place for Bartlesville to have a third national bank within the next 90 days. Messrs. H.N. Cook and Fred P. Spraul of Pawnee County, Oklahoma, were at the head of the proposed institution. They were pleased with the outlook of the town and the highly productive oil field. Their new bank would be located on the northeast corner of Third Street and Johnstone Avenue. Messrs. Cook and Spraul closed a deal on Wednesday, July 29th for the lot and proposed building a two-story brick and stone building 25X90 and fronting on Johnstone Avenue. The first floor would be occupied by the bank and the second story would be divided into comfortable office rooms. The new institution would be know as the American National Bank of Bartlesville with a capital stock of $25,000. On November 5, 1903, T.P. Kane, deputy and acting Comptroller of the Currency, authorized the American National Bank of Bartlesville, located in the town of Bartlesville in the Cherokee Nation and Indian Territory, to commence the business of banking.

For 1904, in commercial circles, much progress was made. The Summer of 1904, on Johnstone Avenue between Second and Third, William Johnstone erected a handsome two-story brick building with granite trimmings at a cost of about $12,000. The addition to the American National Bank building by Wilhite, Curl, et. al., was completed in October. This was a handsome two story structure, upstairs offices and lower floor store rooms, costing about $8,000.

Around 2 o'clock on Wednesday morning, February 8, 1905, Bartlesville again narrowly escaped a disastrous fire. For a short time the American National Bank building, one of the handsomest structures in town was threatened and with it the entire block between Second and Third and Johnstone and Dewey where many large mercantile concerns and also the Bartlesville National Bank were located. Night watchman Brow sounded the alarm and in short time the fire boys had the hose carts on hand and a crowd had begun to gather. Three lines of hose were laid although only one was used. A stream of water backed by 90 pounds of pressure was used to attack the flames. The fire started in a closet upstairs in the new section of the building. The cause was a jet connected by rubber hose that had burned through the floor and was moving between the floor and ceiling. Holes were promptly cut through the floor at different places and in a short time the last spark had been extinguished. The damage was about $200 covering all losses, part of which were the windows broken by the water pressure. The billiard room below sustained the most damage as water poured down in great streams. This was the third fire since the fire company had been organized.

In April 1905, a change in the ownership of the controlling interest in the American National bank was the business deal of the week. On Monday, H.N. Cook who held the management of the institution, sold his stock in the concern to eastern capitalists headed by J.B. Jones and W.L. Norton of Wellsville, New York. These gentlemen were old experienced oil men from the eastern fields and had made themselves familiar with about every phase of the oil business yet discovered. It was understood that they would have interested with them several operators heavily interested in the local fields, and the bank would seek to identify itself with the oil industry as far as possible. The management of the bank was, for the present at least, under the direction of Mr. Norton, though E.F. Blaise continued as cashier. Mr. Cook will leave Bartlesville, though as he himself states it, he does not know just what direction he will take, as he has no plans for the future. His children will spend the summer in Colorado and he and his wife may join them later. The American National, though but little more than a year and a half old enjoyed from the first a most liberal patronage, and had come to be one of the safe, conservative institutions of the town. The new management secures control "at a very auspicious moment, when "failure" in any well ordered business undertaking in Bartlesville seemed impossible.

On Monday, October 25, 1909, the Union National Bank opened for business in the building formerly occupied by the American National Bank which had gone into liquidation. The deposits of the American National had been transferred to the new institution, its building and business having been purchased. The officers of the new bank were as follows: M.F. Stilwell, president; Dr. Howard Weber, first vice president; Dr. R.D. Rood, second vice president; W.C. Raymond, cashier. The directors were Clint Moore, Judge J.J. Shea, H.V. Foster, H.C. Moore. John H. Brennan was attorney for the bank. The Union National takes the accounts and liabilities of the old institution but also gets a sufficient amount of gilt edge security to protect it from loss. The assets taken over by the new bank consisted of $500,000 and the deposits were $375,000. Remarkably, the Union National was able to raise $100,000 in actual cash in a few hours by the men who subscribed for the stock. F.W. Bryan, national bank examiner who had been inspecting conditions in the bank regarded it as a little short of wonderful that in a city the size of Bartlesville such an amount of money in cash could be raised in so short a time. All of the stockholders and officers of the Union National were oil producers and well-known in financial circles.

In January 1911, a federal grand jury at Muskogge indicted Norton who was president of the Columbia Bank and Trust Company of Oklahoma City, and connected with the American National Bank at Bartlesville and the Farmers National at Tulsa, all of which failed. Seven true bills were returned against W.L. Norton of Bartlesville charging false entries in the books of the American National, false reports to the comptroller of the currency and misappropriation of funds. Two true bills were returned against Eugene Blaise charging him with making false reports of the Farmers National condition and misappropriation of funds. Both gave $2,500 bonds. The defunct Farmers National Bank of Tulsa closed on December 14, 1909, following several days' investigation by national bank examiner F.W. Bryant due to the failure of the Columbia bank in Oklahoma City a short time previous. In September 1909, the Farmers National Had $1,000,000 in deposits, but following the Columbia failure its deposits dropped to only $475,000. In July 1912, William L. Norton, sentenced to seven years in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas after his conviction in February on three indictments charging him with violations of the national banking laws, filed an appeal with the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. Eleven indictments containing forty counts had been filed against him, but eight of the indictments were dropped by the court after the trial had begun and he was convicted on only three.

In April 1913, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the sentence of William L. Norton. In May 1915, President Wilson commuted to a year and a day the seven year sentence of William L. Norton, convicted of misappropriating funds of the old American National Bank of Bartlesville of which he was president. Norton served his term in Leavenworth penitentiary.

On Saturday, June 8, 1935, William L. Norton, 57, long-time independent oil operator who developed some of the properties around Chelsea when the local fields were first opened, passed away at a Tulsa Hospital following a heart attack on Monday. He had been in poor health for several months. Until recently when his health failed and he moved to Tulsa, Norton operated actively around Chelsea and maintained his Oklahoma headquarters there. His home was in Wellsville, New York. He also had extensive interests around Bartlesville and formerly maintained an office in that city where he located when first coming to Oklahoma in 1902. Later he moved to Nowata where he started an extensive operation just before and after statehood. Twelve years ago he went to Tulsa. Mr. Norton was well-known by many of those in the oil business throughout the state.

Official Bank Title

1: The American National Bank of Bartlesville, OK

Bank Note Types Issued

1902 Red Seal $20 bank note with pen signature of W.C. Raymond, Cashier and a faded President's signature. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions, www.ha.com

A total of $243,700 in National Bank Notes was issued by this bank between 1903 and 1910. This consisted of a total of 20,192 notes (20,192 large size and No small size notes).

This bank issued the following Types and Denominations of bank notes:

Series/Type	Sheet/Denoms	Serial#s	Sheet Comments
1902 Red Seal	3x10-20	1 - 3862	Territory, Indian
1902 Date Back	4x5	1 - 290
1902 Date Back	3x10-20	1 - 896

Bank Presidents and Cashiers

Bank Presidents and Cashiers during the National Bank Note Era (1903 - 1910):

Presidents:

• Henry Nathaniel Cook, 1904-1904
• John Bainbridge Jones, 1905-1905
• William Lucius Norton, 1906-1908
• Mortimer Florer Stilwell, 1909-1909

Cashiers:

• Eugene Frank Blaise, 1904-1908
• William Colvin Raymond, 1909-1909

Other Known Bank Note Signers

• No other known bank note signers for this bank

Bank Note History Links

• American National Bank, Bartlesville, OK History (NB Lookup)
• Oklahoma Bank Note History (BNH Wiki)

Sources

• Bartlesville, OK, on Wikipedia
• Don C. Kelly, National Bank Notes, A Guide with Prices. 6th Edition (Oxford, OH: The Paper Money Institute, 2008).
• Dean Oakes and John Hickman, Standard Catalog of National Bank Notes. 2nd Edition (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1990).
• Banks & Bankers Historical Database (1782-1935), https://spmc.org/bank-note-history-project