Pygmy among the giants : the Weyburn Security Bank

Abstract

After receiving its federal banking charter in 1910, the Weyburn Security Bank shifted the aspirations of a group of pioneer prairie entrepreneurs into the more formally regulated environment of the Canadian banking fraternity from the pioneer environment inhabited by early private bankers in the prairie west. The early aspirations of these entrepreneurs were not entirely obliterated by this shift however; they simply attached themselves to a somewhat more stable vehicle. Until its demise, in 1931, the Weyburn Security Bank was a unique expression of those aspirations in the general context of the historical development of Canadian banking. Played out in the setting of the developing agricultural economy of western Canada, the attempt to carry those aspirations (influenced by American banking philosophy) to fruition reveals much about both the development of an agricultural community in southern Saskatchewan and the role that bankers played in that development. As well, the interplay between the Weyburn Security Bank, the federal government regulators, and the rest of the banking community provides an insight into the nature of relationships within the banking fraternity prior to the depression of the 1930s.