10 NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2022 COVER STORY Progress and Change History of the IBA through 1997 Dr. Douglas V. Austin President Austin Financial Services Inc. Toledo, Ohio David D. Austin Vice President Austin Financial Services Inc. Toledo, Ohio When songwriter Billy Joel penned a popular song in the 1980s, he wrote, “Only the good die young.” How wrong can one be? Here we are, in 1997, celebrating the centennial of the Indiana Bankers Association. The celebration marks 100 years of serving the banking industry in the state of Indiana! For perspective consider that 90% of all new businesses fail within the first five years. More than 30% of all the top Fortune 500 firms from 30 years ago do not exist today as separate companies. Since 1985, 14 of the largest 25 banking institutions in Indiana are owned by out-of-state bank holding companies. Two Indiana bankers in 1891 formed the original IBA. The bankers, R.E. Niven, First National Bank of Thorntown, and C.S. Andrews, First National Bank of Brazil, organized the first IBA meeting at the Grand Hotel in Indianapolis, with 100 bankers in attendance. The goal was to provide an avenue for the free discussion and exchange of ideas for the promotion of the general welfare of the commercial banks in Indiana. An early success, the Indiana Bankers Association held its second annual meeting in West Baden in 1892. However, according to Niven, the IBA was “lost in the shuffle” during the Financial Panic of 1893 and disbanded. In 1896 J.E. Shirk called again for the creation of an Indiana Bankers Association where bankers, banks and The following is a reprint of a cover article that the Indiana Bankers Association commissioned in 1997 for a centennial edition of Hoosier Banker in celebration of the IBA’s 100-year anniversary. trust companies could become members for $5 per year. In 1897 a group of Indiana bankers – led by A.M. Fletcher, Fletcher Bank; C.T. Lindsey, Citizens National Bank, South Bend; E.L. McKee, Indiana National Bank; and Mord Carter, First National Bank, Danville – attended the American Bankers Association convention in Detroit. Afterward the present-day IBA began to take form. The IBA corporate mission of 1897 expressed the Association’s role: “In order to promote the general welfare and usefulness of banks and banking institutions and to secure uniformity of action, together with the practical benefits to be derived from personal acquaintance, and from the discussion of subjects of importance to the banking and commercial interests of country and especially in order to secure the proper consideration of questions relating to the financial and commercial usages, customs and laws which affect the banking interests of the state of Indiana, and for protection against loss by crime, we, the members of the Indiana Bankers Association, appreciating the importance of concert in
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