Shawneetown, Illinois holds a peculiar place in American financial history: when Chicago was a muddy frontier settlement, Shawneetown's banks were among the most powerful in the midwest, and local lenders reportedly turned down a loan application from Chicago's founders on the grounds that no city so far from Shawneetown could ever amount to much. By 1960, the irony was complete. This sesquicentennial piece was issued by a local bank to mark 150 years of a town that famously bet on the wrong geography.
Shawneetown, Illinois holds a peculiar place in American financial history: when Chicago was a muddy frontier settlement, Shawneetown's banks were among the most powerful in the midwest, and local lenders reportedly turned down a loan application from Chicago's founders on the grounds that no city so far from Shawneetown could ever amount to much. By 1960, the irony was complete. This sesquicentennial piece was issued by a local bank to mark 150 years of a town that famously bet on the wrong geography.