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Businesses & industryA Bank Takes Shape as Electric Light Approaches
In September 1883, a new bank organized on Sunbury Street while a separate electric-light venture moved toward operation.
A new institution in familiar rooms
On September 4, 1883, the First National Bank of Shamokin organized with C. Graeber as president, Alexander Fulton as vice president and George C. Graeber as cashier. The Sunbury Weekly News reported the arrangement ten days later, under a heading announcing a new bank in the coal region.
The intended banking rooms were in C. Graeber’s building on Sunbury Street near Washington Street. They had formerly been occupied by the Shamokin Banking Company. The new institution was therefore preparing to use rooms already associated with banking, rather than announcing a wholly new building.
The report named the directors as C. Graeber, Alexander Fulton, Isaac May Sr., John Mullen, George Marshall, George Hack, John S. Graeber and George C. Graeber. Officers, directors and an address gave the announcement a concrete local shape. It still described preparations: the bank was expected to be ready for business in a short time, not declared already open on the organization day.
Another investment taking shape
The bank’s organization coincided with a separate investment in electric lighting. An August newspaper account had listed Shamokin among the communities where Edison installations were being put in, assigning it 1,600 lights. The signed agreement clarifies that this meant a proposed maximum capacity of 1,600 sixteen-candlepower lamps, not 1,600 connected customers.
Company correspondence places the electric station’s initial startup on September 22, less than three weeks after the bank organized. Connections continued to be made afterward. The bank report and the station letters describe different enterprises, each at a stage of becoming operational.
On Sunbury Street, the bank’s plans involved officers and rooms formerly used by another banking company. Around the electric station, the work involved engines, dynamos and lines to customers. Together they offer a view of Shamokin’s business life in the same season, without making the bank an electric subscriber or turning a pair of announcements into proof of a shared venture.