It was a long time in Missouri before you could write a check on your favorite bank. There were few banks and those that did exist were all too often quite shaky.The first Bank of St. Louis was chartered in 1813, but did little business for three years. By then the Bank of Missouri was in business. The charter for the latter bank was granted in 1817. Its first president was Auguste Chouteau, prominent St. Louis businessman. Future Governor Lilburn Boggs was the first cashier. The bank was located in the basement of Chouteau’s home. It was created over strenuous objections of the organizers of the first St. Louis bank. They had fallen on hard times because their bank, anxious to encourage commercial expansion in the West, had over-extended itself in issuing worthless money.
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