Businesses are failing, following several years of expansion. A credit crunch has spread throughout the country. Banks have begun to fail, and some have been bought out by their former competitors. Unemployment is quickly rising. Citizens are looking to their government for help, and polls suggest a shift in political power.
Are these the recent headlines of 2008-2009? They are, but these were also the news of the day during the Panic of 1893. A period of overbuilding and shaky financing of certain railroads led to business and financial collapses. The presidential election of 1896 pitted William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan in a political campaign of mostly economic issues.
Locally, the Fourth National Bank, headed by Joseph H. Warner, was liquidated on August 10, 1893. The bank was absorbed by Wiehl, Probasco, and Company, which soon renamed itself the Bank of Chattanooga.
Joseph Warner must have felt stunned by the rapid turn of events in a business career which had been hugely successful. It was only four years earlier that the Fourth National Bank was founded.
On July 17, 1889, the Chattanooga Times had published order #4060 from J.D. Abrahams, Deputy and Acting Comptroller of Currency. Mr. Abrahams wrote that the Fourth National Bank “has complied with all the provisions of the Statutes of the United States required to be complied with before an association shall be authorized to commence the business of banking.”
With paid-in capital of $200,000, Fourth National Bank opened its doors. Less than two years later, Joseph Warner was looking for a new location to do banking. The March 20, 1891 Chattanooga Times reported that Warner had bought the Glass Building for $25,000. The former owner, Professor D.C. Wilson, had a plate glass business there on the southeast corner of Eighth and Broad streets. Wilson advertised his products through a multi-storied structure with large glass windows.
The Glass Building had been damaged by one of Chattanooga’s frequent floods. Joseph Warner decided to keep the building’s foundation, but replace everything else with a new office building. The architectural style was Richardsonian, named for Henry Hobson Richardson. The edifice had a long side along Eighth Street and a short side along Broad. Each day, Warner could look across Broad Street to keep an eye on his competitor, the First National Bank.
Things were booming in Chattanooga in 1891. The Fischer brothers had just bought property in the same block as Warner for their jewelry business. One could travel to Florida for two cents per mile on the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad. D.B. Loveman’s was previewing their Easter millinery for ladies on March 24th and 25th. Joseph Warner thought that things were going so well that he built a new home at Vine and Palmetto streets.
In addition to his banking business, Joseph Warner had offices for his other endeavors alongside Fourth National. Warner headed the East Tennessee Slate Company and Southern Building and Loan. He was also president of the Catoosa Springs resort
In “History in Catoosa County” by William H.H. Clark, the author wrote that the Catoosa Springs “had begun to attract health seekers even before the Indians were removed.” When Warner was affiliated with the resort, he advertised it as being in proximity to the railroad for anyone wanting to travel there. It was “just a hack car away.” The Springs’ “Buffalo Epsom Water” could be shipped anywhere.
Joseph Warner maintained an office in his Eighth and Broad building for a brief while after the collapse of Fourth National Bank. When Chattanooga reorganized its government along the lines of a city commission in 1911, Joseph Warner was chosen as the head of public utilities, grounds and buildings. Under his leadership, the city park that bears his name today was acquired.
Meanwhile, back in the mid-1890’s, another businessman was at work in the building that took on his name for many years. George Fort Milton, Sr. had been a banker himself with the People’s Bank, which was also liquidated in 1893. In 1894, in an office at Eighth and Broad, he was publishing The Taxpayer, a newspaper which advocated economic and civic reforms. After what the public had experienced in the Panic of 1893, such views had a following.
The Chattanooga News also had an office at 106 East Eighth, and advertised that it “has a larger guaranteed circulation in this immediate territory than any other paper.” Milton bought a two-thirds interest in The Chattanooga News in 1909, and headed it until his passing in 1924.
The Bank of Chattanooga continued in the former home of the Fourth National Bank. In 1912, Harry S. Probasco founded the Amercian Trust and Banking Company, which had its headquarters at Eighth and Broad until relocating in 1915 to 734 Market Street. The Chickamauga Trust Company was an occupant in 1920.
From 1928 to 1945, the address was often called McIsaac’s Corner, a small lunch counter and confectionery run by George D. McIsaac. In an April 6, 1978 interview with Alan Murray in the Chattanooga Times, Mr. McIsaac recalled that “A sandwich was ten cents, a Coke a nickel, coffee a nickel, sweet milk was nickel.” McIsaac’s also sold sandwiches, chili, and homemade soup to downtown shoppers and professional people, such as attorneys in the nearby James Building.
In the 1950’s, the Dix and Faires restaurant was a tenant. John B. Faires was also associated with Nikki’s Drive-in. From the 1960’s until relocating to new offices on Chestnut Street in 1978, Dr. David Dzik and his son, Dr. Joseph Dzik, had an optometry practice there. To preserve it for future generations, the Milton Building underwent a couple of restorations by different owners.
The Figgy’s Sandwich Shop and Tomato Tango restaurants served a new generation of downtown customers in recent years. The Eighth Street side has had several tenants, too, over the years but few can match the longevity of Dayle May Jewelers. However, it was reported in the February 5, 2008 Chattanoogan.com that the business was leaving the Milton Building for the North Shore after being downtown for eighty-six years.
The Stamp Collector is still serving customers on the Eighth Street side, while the former restaurant spot is looking for its next entrepreneur.
If you would like to know more about Joseph Warner and his family, please read the recent posting on the Warners at //www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_142793.asp.
If you would like to know more about the history of banking in Chattanooga, look for the next occasion when Dennis Schafluetzel and Tom Carson are giving a talk. Their last one at the downtown library was very well-attended and received. “Building to Last,” a history of the American National Bank by John Longwith, is another good resource on Chattanooga’s financial industry.
If you have memories of any of the businesses in the Milton Building, please send me an e-mail at jolleyh@bellsouth.net.