First National Bank of Chicago
May 1, 1863: First National Bank was organized with a capital of $100,000.
July 1, 1863: First National Bank opens for business on the SW corner of Clark and Lake streets.
October, 1871: The Great Fire partially destroys the building. Fireproof vault saves documents and cash. The bank resumed business within a week.
January 1, 1872: The bank re-opened on the corner of Washington and State streets.
1882: Capital was $1,000,000
1930s: First National remains open during the Great Depression, still paying interest on its accounts.
1969: First Chicago is created as the bank’s parent. Sixty-story Loop headquarters is
completed.
1977: $1 million is stolen from bank vault during Columbus Day weekend. Money is
never recovered.
1980: Colorful Chairman A. Robert Abboud is ousted after executive squabbles. He later claims lax lending controls by successors, including Barry Sullivan, hurt results and kept
bank from being a major player.
1982: Buys Bankers Trust credit-card business.
1984: Purchases American National Bank and Trust Co.
1985: Citing problems with its Brazilian affiliate, First Chicago takes a $51 million write- off, an early sign of problems in international lending.
1987: Buys Beneficial National Bank, making it one of the largest issuers of bank credit
cards. Because of a huge write-off of Third World debt, First Chicago posts a $570
million loss, the biggest in its history.
1988: Acquires Gary-Wheaton Banks and the retail deposits of Continental Bank.
1991: Vice President Jeffrey Tassani pleads guilty to charges of defrauding First Chicago, admitting he took $750,000 in kickbacks on bank contracts. Sullivan resigns after Tassani reveals bank executives ran their own high-stakes betting ring on the NCAA basketball
tournament.
1992: Richard Thomas takes over as chairman. The bank now has more than 100
locations.
1994: Buys Lake Shore Bancorp.
1995: First Chicago becomes a national joke after it imposes $3 fee on customers who
use tellers. Bank One drops the teller fee in 2002.
July 1995:Merges with NBD Bancorp Inc. of Detroit in a deal worth about $5.3 billion.
NBD boss Verne Istock gets the chairmanship.
April 1998: First Chicago NBD Corp. sold to Columbus, Ohio-based Banc One Corp.,
which moves its headquarters to Chicago. Deal is worth $30 billion. New company spells
“Bank” with a “c”. Banc One Chairman John McCoy becomes chairman.
1999: First Chicago name erased from the branches in September. Three months later,
McCoy is ousted over deteriorating results. Istock succeeds him in caretaker role.
