Chalfant: Box offered glimpse of city’s political past

According to the 1882 History of Pettis County, James C. Thompson, son of Captain A.H. and Sallie Thompson, was a cashier at the First National Bank, the oldest bank in Sedalia. The bank was located on West Second Street in a “handsome building [with] an iron front, plate glass, is heated with registers, furnished with telephones, and has a triple safe with the latest improved patent Yale Time Locks.” A prosperous institution, the bank had discounted notes of more than $300,000, deposits exceeding $300,000, resources of more than $550,000 and a surplus of $70,000.

All this prosperity came to a crashing halt in 1894, when Thompson abandoned his family, cleaned out the vault of the bank, and fled to Mexico with most of its contents. The court appointed a receiver to take charge of the contents of the bank and its vault. The bank was closed and its building was repurposed as a variety of stores and shops.

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