Union Planters Bank was a United States financial institution and multi-state bank holding corporation headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee prior to being acquired by Regions Financial Corporation. With over $34 billion in assets, Union Planters Bank was the largest bank in Tennessee and among the 30 largest bank holding companies in the United States. Union Planters operated over 760 banking centers in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas.
History
Union and Planters Bank was founded by William Farrington, a Memphis businessman who had prospered during the American Civil War and emerged the wealthy head of an insurance company. In 1868, Farrington and the Board of Directors of Desoto Insurance Company applied to convert the company to a bank and they received government approval on February 12, 1869. Prior to the Civil War, the two most prominent banks in Memphis were Union Bank and the Branch Planters Bank. The assets of both, however, were seized during the war and the two banks had ceased to exist. Hoping to capitalize on the defunct antebellum banks' names, Farrington and the Board named their new bank Union and Planters. The board sold $671,300 in stock and established offices in a three-story brownstone in the Memphis financial district. On September 1, 1869, Union and Planters officially opened for business.
Union and Planters' early years were plagued with overdrafts. Farrington became increasingly at odds with the members of the Board of Directors, largely due to his interest in the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad. The struggling railroad company was indebted to Union and Planters, who held loans for the railroad totaling $200,000. In 1874, the bank's directors voted to remove Farrington from office. Outraged, Farrington remained one of the bank's largest stockholders and for the next two years, became a thorn in the bank's side. He refused to pay off the railroad company's loans and he attended board meetings during which he read lengthy protests into the minutes, demanded detailed information on bank operations and voted in opposition to even the most routine measures.
At a time of extreme financial hardship throughout the American South, Union and Planters nevertheless posted profits thanks to the sound advice the bank received from several Wall Street contacts. Napoleon Hill's assumption of the presidency in 1885, ushered in a period of growth for the bank. With little formal education, Hill had established himself in the business world as owner of a combination grocery store and saloon in Sacramento, California which he had founded amidst the 1849 gold rush. In 1857, he traveled to Memphis where he established a cotton and supply business. Like his predecessor Farrington, Hill prospered during the Civil War and emerged from it quite wealthy. Under his leadership from 1885 to 1890, Union and Planters reported profits of nearly $100,000 and deposits of more than one million dollars. With Hill at the helm, Union and Planters fared well during the depression years of the early 1890s. He suffered a stroke in 1894 but continued running the bank until a second stroke in 1897 forced him to transfer power to his "right-hand man," Samuel Read.
Samuel Read began as a clerk in a West Tennessee country store before moving to Memphis in 1857 to work in the cotton supply business. During the Civil War, he made a fortune in the dry goods trade. His reputation as an extremely conservative banker was well earned. During his leadership, new customers wishing to open an account with Union and Planters were required to have an endorsement from an established customer who, by endorsing the new account holder, assumed personal responsibility for any default. The bank's problem with overdrafts ceased—and so did the bank's growth. From 1896 to 1900, Union and Planters reported no new account holders, no increases in deposits, and few loans were extended. As a result, Union and Planters was surpassed in size by several other Memphis banks.
The end of the nineteenth century saw the popularity of trust companies surge at the expense of banks. To stimulate growth, in 1906, Union and Planters merged with Tennessee Trust Company, formerly the Security Bank of Memphis to form the Union and Planters Bank and Trust Company. By offering a wide range of services—including mortgages, trusts, savings accounts, and a brokerage for stocks and bonds. It was the first Memphis institution to take a department approach to banking. Union and Planters relocated its offices to the Tennessee Trust Building. Read stayed on as the bank's president, an office he held until his death in 1915.