It is the world’s largest bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, so of course it knows better than to continue to operate a small downtown Springfield branch if it can save a little money by sending small customers like me to the far east or far west edges of town. I should have known when the bank got rid of its downtown drive-up service several years ago, and started imposing a monthly fee on checking accounts, that our relationship was fading. This week Chase took its signs down from the building at Sixth and Washington where the first floor, once a chocolate shop, is empty again. Small customers should know to deposit in smaller banks that value local, and I do. But I’ve kept the Chase account because its predecessor, locally owned Marine Bank, is where Illinois Times first opened its account in 1975. That downtown bank is also where Abraham Lincoln of Springfield opened his personal account, with a deposit of $310 on March 1, 1853, and would often walk over there to talk with trusted friends while taking out a few dollars in cash. Friendly bankers and tellers is one tradition Chase maintained downtown till the end, helping us through COVID and credit card scammers. Most, we’re told, are being relocated to Springfield’s fringes, where we can see them again. But it won’t be the same. – Fletcher Farrar, editor
This article appears in Funeral home failures.
