Charles Clinton Walsh (San Angelo, TX)
Charles Clinton Walsh (May 29, 1867 – December 20, 1943)
Biography
- Name: Charles Clinton Walsh
- Birth: May 29, 1867 Kirkwood, Illinois (although one obituary gives birthplace as Pickaway County, Ohio)
- Death: December 20, 1943 Dallas, Texas
- Prominent Texas banker, civic leader, and poet who was Reserve Agent and Director of the FRB of Dallas.
Charles Clinton Walsh was a prominent banker as well as a businessman, civic leader and published poet in West Texas who eventually secured appointments as the Reserve Agent, Director, and Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Education and Early Years
Born in Kirkwood, Illinois in 1867, C. C. Walsh attended high school in Monticello, after which he taught in the state’s public schools for four years. In 1890 he married Emma Farnsworth of Milmine, Illinois. Emma’s older sister Ann had married George Hay, a grain dealer from Milmine who later joined with Walsh in his early banking investments. Walsh then attended law school at the University of Michigan, graduating cum laude with his LL.B. in 1893. Marrying Emma had linked his future to Texas because his deceased father-in-law Enos Farnsworth, a Forty-Niner who struck it rich, had reinvested his California windfall in extensive land holdings in Gonzales County, Texas, leaving his young widow Susan the beneficiary of real estate that needed management. Accordingly, after finishing his studies, Walsh and his wife, along with George Hay, his wife Ann, and Susan Farnsworth all relocated to the South Texas city of Gonzales, the county seat. There, C. C. Walsh joined the law firm of T. M. Harwood & Sons, which later became Harwood & Walsh.
Banking in Van Alstyne and San Angelo, Texas
In 1903 Walsh moved north to Van Alstyne, where he and Hay organized four banks: The Farmers National Bank in 1903 (of which Walsh was the President and Hays the Cashier) followed by three smaller, state institutions in 1906, located in Tom Bean (Grayson County), Allen, and Melissa (both Collin County).
Due to Hay’s failing health, the two sold their banking interests in 1907 to the Continental Bank & Trust Co. of Fort Worth and moved to the West Texas town of San Angelo, where Walsh put down roots and thereafter played a significant role in the economic development of that sheep and cattle raising region. He quickly resumed his banking career by founding the San Angelo Bank & Trust Co. in October 1907, its large 250k capital accumulated through subscriptions that Walsh solicited from area ranchers by commandeering what was the only automobile in San Angelo at the time to travel to their remote spreads. Walsh also founded the Trust Building Company to finance erect a six-story building for his bank. At the time it was the largest building in San Angelo.
With the founding of the Federal Reserve System, Walsh converted this institution to a federal charter in December 1914 as the Central National Bank (charter 10664) This later absorbed the Western National Bank (charter 6807) in 1919. The latter had been more of a cowman’s bank and the consolidation doubled the capital stock of the Central National, making it one of the largest banks at the time between Forth Worth and El Paso and a major financer of the region’s economy. Walsh followed this acquisition by founding the Security Building & Loan Association in 1922. This later became the San Angelo Federal Savings and Loan.
Other Business and Civic Activities
In addition to banking, Walsh’s most significant contribution to the region’s economy was to organize the Wool Growers Central Storage Company, a rancher-owned marketing and finance operation which he chartered in February 1909. Essentially this operated like a cooperative warehouse that enabled ranchers to pool their wool and mohair production and control how it came to market, thus assuring more favorable prices. It also facilitated their borrowing against the collateral of their stored products. In the years before the establishment of the Federal Intermediate Credit System, ranchers relied upon bank financing for their working capital. The connection between the cooperative warehouse and Walsh’s Central National Bank gave the ranchers a ready source of funding.
More broadly, Walsh assumed a leadership role in the business community by organizing the West Texas Chamber of Commerce and serving as its second President in 1923-24. A lifelong Methodist, Walsh was Treasurer of the West Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and filled similar roles for the Church’s Endowment Association and its Board of Missions. He was also instrumental in bringing the new Southern Methodist University to Dallas and remained a Trustee of that institution from 1912 to 1925.
Walsh was involved in the civic affairs of San Angelo as well, serving on the Board of Trustees of the San Angelo Independent School District from 1917-1925, as well as being active on the San Angelo City Commission.
C.C. Walsh’s Cowboy Poetry
Although he grew up in Illinois and moved to Texas only as an adult, Walsh became a passionate student and aficionado of the fast-disappearing folkways of the western range. With a great capacity for writing, Walsh had managed in the early 1890s to produce a well-regarded, three-volume study guide for law students even as he studied the subject himself. Once at home in West Texas, he devoted his literary energy to producing large amounts of cowboy poetry, a highly sentimental form of verse that memorialized the lives of cowboys and cowpunchers on the range. Prominent among Walsh’s creative output was a 1917 volume of poetry, Early Days on the Range. In addition to this volume, he published his work widely in magazines and newspapers.
As a result of his literary labors Walsh became esteemed as an expert and authority on West Texas lore. At some point in his career Walsh acquired the honorific “Colonel”, a title which he used for the rest of his life.
Appointment to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
In June 1925 Walsh accepted an appointment to the posts of Reserve Agent and Class “C” Director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. At this point in his life he sold out of all his interests and resigned from his civic responsibilities in San Angelo, relocating to Dallas. Walsh served in these positions and as Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas until he retired in 1937.
Personal Life
Walsh’s marriage to Emma Farnsworth resulted in two daughters: Gladys, born 1895, and Claire, born 1898 and who died in infancy.
Walsh himself passed away in Dallas in 1943.
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Bank Officer Summary
During his banking career, C. C. Walsh was involved with the following bank(s):
- Farmer's National Bank, Van Alstyne, TX (Charter 7016): President 1904-1906
- Central National Bank, San Angelo, TX (Charter 10664): President 1915-1924
Sources
- Banks & Bankers Historical Database (1782-1935), https://spmc.org/bank-note-history-project
- San Angelo [Texas] Standard Times, December 21, 1943; August 29, 1954.
- Texas Bankers Record, October 1917, p. 32; July 1925, p. 28.
- Walsh, C. C. Early Days on the Western Range: A Pastoral Narrative (Boston: Sherman, French & Co. 1917).
- "Walsh, Charles Clinton" Texas Historical Society Association.
- Who’s Who in Finance, Banking and Insurance: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries 1925-1926 (Philadelphia, PA: Julian B. Slevin Co., Inc. 1926), p. 950.
- Who’s Who in the Central States 1929 (Washington, D.C.: The Mayflower Publishing Co. 1929), pp. 1021-22.