Humphrey Barr, brother of Mrs. L. P. Davis, was an early banker. We know Henry Neal was the banker in 1918. He loaned Elza Tucker's mother $75 to buy a family sewing machine. He charged 10% interest and had a loan limit of $100. Elza has the receipt dated the same year he was born. Bank transactions moved at a steady but cautious pace for several years. That pace changed quickly in 1929 when the bank was robbed. Jude Austin tells, in his "Lowell Memories," how he was locked in the vault. That vault is still in place in 2009. Tin wall and ceiling tiles are still intact inside the upper part of the building, too. The original safe was moved and used at the First National Bank of Rogers under George Mills for a time, then brought back home. Although it was given to the museum, the city of Lowell has both moved and stored it many years. It is simply too heavy for the museum floor.
After the 1930's depression, the building housed stores run by Harrison Smith, Loyd Mabry, Orville & Edith Neal, Leon Chadwick, and perhaps others, but never again a bank. It was the first home of the Lowell Museum in 1976.
(A full account of the bank hold-up is available on dvd at the museum)
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