Belmont–Sheffield Trust and Savings Bank Building

The six-story Belmont-Sheffield Trust and Savings Bank is one of the few surviving bank structures in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, built shortly before the onset of the Great Depression. Belmont-Sheffield enjoyed a strong relationship with the local Swedish community as a neighborhood bank. The bank began operations in 1927, but it moved into its new (now-historic) building only a few days after the stock market crashed in 1929. Despite the tumultuous economic climate, Belmont-Sheffield Trust and Saving provided stability to the community for the first few years of the Great Depression. Still, the ongoing financial crisis led to the banks' closure in 1933. In World War II, the building served as an office for the rationing board and was later converted into apartments.

Belmont-Sheffield, founded in 1927, represented a shift towards neighborhood banking during the 1920s. Neighborhood banks offered clients more personal banking than their larger downtown counterparts. Belmont-Sheffield built its structure on a prominent and central location (one block from the elevated train) in the Lakeview neighborhood populated by numerous Swedish Americans. Indeed, the bank operated primarily as a Swedish institution managed by a primarily Swedish-American Board of Directors and architect. The building's original design called for the bank to use the first and part of the second floors, while the upper floors consisted of various office spaces, stores, and a residential hotel – the Montfield Hotel occupied floors four through six.

The bank began operations in the building on November 1, 1929, a mere four days after the "Black Monday," when the Stock Market crashed. From August 1921 to September 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (or Dow, for short) increased six-fold from 63 points to 381. However, on October 28, 1929, the Dow collapsed, losing nearly thirteen percent of its value. The Dow fell another twelve percent on October 29. The downward spiral continued through the summer of 1932 when the Dow closed at a little more than 41 points, nearly ninety percent below its maximum value. Thus, the bank made plans for the building during the height of the nation's economic optimism, but it opened its doors just as the Great Depression began; around 9,000 banks failed during the 1930s. As economic trouble befell numerous Americans during the early 1930s, including those in Lakeview, the bank provided stability to the community. The bank appeared to buck the trend of bank failures by doubling its capital investment from $100,000 to $200,000 from 1929 to 1932. However, the continuing economic decline proved too much. The bank closed on July 6, 1933. 

The bank's departure from the building left it vacated until roughly World War II when a rationing board moved into it to use it. Several temporary tenants used the space for decades until the 1980s when various developers transitioned the building into an apartment complex and then, in 2005, loft condominiums. The building serves as a reminder of Lakeview's history and its Swedish enclave, the role of neighborhood banking, the economic optimism of the 1920s, and the toll the Great Depression took on banks and communities during the 1930s.

Benjamin, Susan and Lenore Pressman. "Nomination Form: Belmont-Sheffield Trust and Savings Bank Building." National Register of Historic Places. archives.gov. 1984. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892278. 

Richardson, Gary and Alejandro Komai, Michael Gou, and Daniel Park. "Stock Market Crash of 1929." Federal Reserve History. federalreservehistory.org. Accessed October 4, 2023. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/stock-market-crash-of-1929.

Seligman, Amanda. "Lake View." The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. 2005. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/715.html.