After The ‘30S Panic, Boom Begins

Banking

Banking in Spokane today looks little like the industry Richard Stejer entered in 1924.

The transformation has been substantial, even in the 20 years since Val Oxendahl first stepped into a teller’s cage.

Stejer, a 95-year-old former Washington Trust Bank board member, started as a messenger there after applying at such long-gone Spokane institutions as the Exchange National, the Wall Street Bank, the Security State Bank and the American Bank.

Many did not survive the 1930s, when anxious depositors withdrew their money and borrowers en masse defaulted on loans.

Washington Trust, he said, stayed ahead of the tide in part because the bank obtained more currency from a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, then at the corner of Main and Post.

Stejer himself carried the bills back to the bank wrapped in newspaper.

Stejer, who started work at $60 a month, soon became a bookkeeper, then moved on to the credit department, which he eventually headed. He also filled in as a teller.

Stejer said accounts were reconciled at the end of the day by alphabetizing the names of those who had come into the bank that day, dividing the names into three piles and totaling on adding machines the amount of checks, credits and cash paid out.

If the figures didn’t balance, the tellers - all male - stayed until they did balance, he said, recalling one evening when he finally went home at 10 p.m.

Stejer even introduced drive-up banking to Spokane.

He said he first saw banking from automobiles in Salt Lake City, where one institution had divided an entire city block into lanes with individual teller windows.

He snapped a picture, and sold Washington Trust officials on the concept.

In November 1950, Ray Barton of Barton Oldsmobile and also a bank board member was the first to drive through the new facility at Second and Wall.

“It turned out to be a great success,” said Stejer, who retired from the bank in 1975. Much of his time during his last years at the bank was devoted to his duties as assistant treasurer of Expo ‘74.

He also shepherded construction of the bank’s present headquarters at 717 W. Sprague, where Oxendahl is now a teller.

Oxendahl first worked as a teller in North Dakota 20 years ago, left to raise a family, then returned to work in Spokane five years ago.

The changes have been dramatic, she said.

Computers now put all the information about customer relationships - even the signature - at the teller’s fingertips. Until recently, those had to be checked against microfiche, she said, and customer balances were available only by calling.

“When the computers go down, you just go `Wow, we’re back there,”’ Oxendahl said.

She said bank customers expect instant responses to questions about their accounts, as well as bank products.

The technology helps in other ways, she said.

Oxendahl said she helped police arrest a woman trying to open a new account with a $7,000 out-of-state cashier’s check. She put a five-day hold on the deposit.

By the time the woman returned to make a withdrawal, authorities had determined the check was stolen.

Also, Oxendahl said, technology in the form of automated teller machines and the Internet has given people a lot more options in banking.

“Some people don’t want to see a teller,” she said.

Oxendahl said banks now allow more flexibility in scheduling - she works three days a week - as well as duties. She can handle things like foreign currency exchanges and access to safety deposit boxes.

“Before, you were just in your corner, and that’s what you did,” she said.

Staff writer Bert Caldwell can be reached at (509) 459-5450 or by e-mail at bertc@spokesman.com