By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
The Portage County Bank is celebrating 100 years of service this month.
The bank, which has locations in Almond and Plover, first opened its doors for business on July 15, 1901 in Almond.
At the time, Almond was a developing community, with the surrounding town of Almond devoting the most acres in the county to potato production. And the Chicago & North Western Railway was preparing to begin running a line through the community, connecting Fond du Lac with Wisconsin Rapids on Aug. 2, 1901. But there was no bank.
A group of businessmen, Orestes A. Crowell, Charles E. Webster and David Hicks from the Almond area, J.P. Malich and J.W. Dundegan of Stevens Point and John Longbothman of Grant County got together and invested $1,000 to organize the bank as a state bank.
Crowell was the first president, and he served in that position for more than 50 years, until 1952. Hicks was the first vice president and Webster was the cashier, until 1907 when succeeded by W.A. Webster.
The bank opened on Main Street in Almond, on the site of a store originally constructed by Isador Samuelson. Samuelson had sold the store in 1868 to John M. Smart and George G. Crowell, who operated it as the Smart & Crowell Store. That site is apparently now the vacant lot between Village Market and the Almond Historical Society building, although there are some discrepancies about the actual site.
With the railroad operating, providing potato farmers with transportation for their crop, the bank grew, with assets of $40,443.32 by the end of its first year of operation, in July 1902.
Those assets apparently triggered a burglary of the building in October 1902, which netted the burglars less than $200. The burglars entered the building and blew open the door of the safe, scattering debris around the floor.
The noise of the explosion awakened neighbors, and several armed local men went to the bank. A lookout saw them coming and warned the others, probably three in all, and they stole a horse and rig belonging to Crowell and headed toward Amherst.
The horse was later found tied to a tree in a woods not far from Amherst, leading to suspicion that the bandits took a train from Amherst and disappeared. The crime was never solved.
In his book about the history of Portage County, "Our County, Our Story," Malcolm Rosholt said the burglars got $48 in nickels, about $100 in silver and a few pennies.
The railroad helped the community of Almond grow and in 1905 it incorporated as a village, with Crowell also serving as its first president.
By 1910, the bank had outgrown the original wood-frame building, so it constructed a new one, which is now the southern half of the Almond Historical Society Building.
When the bank observed its 25th anniversary, its assets had grown to $539,963.04.
Several years later, the Depression hit the country but the Portage County Bank remained open and transacted business as usual. Finally, the bank closed for a short time with all other banks in the country at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
However, the expertise of Crowell in running the bank was apparently highly regarded because he also served as president of First National Bank in Stevens Point from 1936 to 1949.
While Crowell continued to run the Portage County Bank, Howard Newby was hired on March 11, 1946, to serve as bookkeeper. He worked his way up to cashier in 1947, became a director in 1952, vice president in 1963 and then bank president in 1971. He retired in 1981.
By 1964, the bank had again outgrown its quarters, so it constructed an addition on the northern half of the Historical Society building.
On Feb. 19, 1972, M&I Bancorp purchased the Portage County Bank, making it part of a group of banks M&I owned in Coloma, Westfield, Hancock and Adams.
Banking continued to expand and M&I constructed a new structure on County Trunk D, moving into the building, the present bank location, on Dec. 15, 1980.
The bank was operated as M&I Bank of Portage County until Nov. 28, 1986, when M&I purchased the First National Bank in Stevens Point and regulators required it to sell the Almond bank as a condition of the acquisition.
A group of Almond area businessmen, Dwight Bowden, Daniel Burns, James Burns Jr., Norman Fletcher, Robert Gardner, Kenneth Pagel, Lyle Pagel, Merle Pagel and Richard Pavelski then purchased the bank from M&I.
In 1991, the bank opened a branch in Plover, at 2520 Post Road, expanding its banking services.
As of Dec. 31, 2000, the Portage County Bank had more than $42 million in total assets and more than $37 million in deposits. During the past three years, the bank reported making more than $32 million in mortgage loans to persons purchasing new homes or refinancing existing homes.
Today, Andrew A. Anderson is the bank president.