Bank of Missouri

City: Saint Louis

State: Missouri

In January 1817, the Missouri Territorial Legislature chartered the Bank of Missouri, and it failed in 1821. In 1837, the legislature again chartered a state bank, to be called the Bank of the State of Missouri. It emerged from the Panic of 1837 in solid condition and fulfilled its 20-year charter. In 1850, the Bank of Missouri retained Abraham Lincoln in a suit against the assignees appointed to finalize the business of the liquidated State Bank of Illinois. The Bank of Missouri was reorganized by the state legislature in 1857, and remained the state's fiscal agent until 1866, when it was purchased from the state by a private syndicate.

Walter B. Stevens, Centennial History of Missouri (St. Louis: S. J. Clarke, 1921), 2:434, 437, 445-47, 455-56; Frank F. Sallee, "Branch Banking in Missouri: Past, Present, and Future," Missouri Law Review 49 (Fall 1984), 795-98; Bank of Missouri v. Ryan et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137682; Resolution regarding Revenues Deposited in the State Bank of Missouri.