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.
First National Bank of Chicago advertisement includes a number of photographs that show the exteriors of the bank’s first three buildings, in addition to several interior views of the banks.
Chicago Tribune
April 8, 1928
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.
First National Bank II
First National Bank of Chicago III
First National Bank IV