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History of the McDowell National Bank 

Shortly alter Alex McDowell had established his banking business in 1872, the country was visited by a depression.  

One cause assigned to the 1873 panic was “over production”. At that time there were in the Shenango Valley 32 blast furnaces, all idle. A new furnace, the first steel jacketed furnace, had just been built. Only a short time before, iron ore, for the first time, had been melted by using coke for fuel.  

The chief product of the local mills was iron rails, and the principal market was in the Northwest. Steel rails had but lately been introduced. They proved so efficient that no more iron rails were made in Sharon after this panic. It was necessary to find new uses for the iron produced here in order to keep the community growing. 

The present day changes in steel making may compel another shift in Shenango Valley’s industrial setup, but a community that has the many advantages of this Valley is bound to attract industry. 

In 1884 the community was visited by a great panic caused by unwise investment and reckless finance of city bankers. 

Again in 1893 the bank had to face a test that taxed banks almost to the limit. Credit was at a low ebb. There were 156 railroads in the hands of receivers, including the Erie, the Northern Pacific and the Union Pacific. If names of railroads were changed, conditions in this field would have been almost identical with those of today. 

During tills period. unemployed were so numerous that a man known as General Coxev of Mansfield, O., organized an arm of unemployed and marched with them to Washington. 

In 1903 another slump in business occurred. It was described by J. P. Morgan as being due to “Undigested securities,” which had reference to the amount of new securities that had been brought out by ill advised financing, mostly in cities. The securities were not purchased by the public.

Again in 1907 we had a short-lived money panic, chiefly centered in large cities where people became frightened because they thought they could not get any money. This particular panic had a great deal to do with the establishment of the Federal Reserve Banks. 

Business was at a low ebb at the beginning of the World War in 1913. The falling off of investment values in 1921 caused great distress and many failures. Big banking business again became frightened and called loans. 

In all of the records of these depressions there does not appear any sound reason to believe that the concentration of bank control in large centers, through a system of branch banking, would be of any benefit to the country as a whole. On the contrary, records indicate that the results would be adverse to the country’s welfare.  

McDowell National Bank Clock

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Alexander McDowell

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The New Home of the McDowell National Bank, 1935

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