Saturday, September 8, 2007 1:15 AM CDT
Column: Leonard Archer, CNB were synonymous with Charleston for years
By BILL LAIR, Managing Editor
If you have lied here less than 20 years you may not know there was a Charleston National Bank, let alone know who Leonard Archer was.
Archer died last week at age 88 in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he and his wife, Kathryn (Kack), lived in retirement.
But from 1938 to 1985, Archer was a fixture at Charleston National Bank.
I can’t say that I knew Archer well but we were acquaintances because we attended the same church and because, well, because everyone in Charleston knew Leonard Archer.
He was president of Charleston National Bank. For a number of years it was the only bank in town.
Times change. During most of the time that Archer was active at the bank, the square was the place to be. The railroad was the major employer in town for the first 50 years or so of the 20th century.
“Railroad payday used to be a big day here,” he once said, “but that’s gone now.”
Just as the railroad’s influence has faded from the city, Charleston National Bank also no longer exists in more than one sense.
Charleston National became Boatmen’s Bank a few years after Archer retired in 1985. It later became NationsBank and now is Bank of America.
But the old building at the corner of Sixth and Monroe also no longer exists. It was the bank building demolished by the Coles County Board years ago. The space now is a parking lot just south of Roc’s Blackfront.
According to a 1985 article by Betty Boyer, then-publisher and editor of the Times-Courier, Archer was a long-legged 19-year-old farm boy from Rardin when he was hired at Charleston National Bank at the tail end of the Depression.
He was a bookkeeper, low man on the five-person bank staff. The five employees oversaw the bank’s assets of about $1.4 million in 1938.
By 1985, at Archer’s retirement, the bank’s assets were $106 million. The bank’s payroll included about 60 people.
His successor as bank president was Sarah Jane Preston, first hired by Archer, who was probably the first woman bank president in the area.
At her own retirement several years later, Preston said Archer was a master teacher.
Her lending style was patterned after his: “What’s good for the customer is usually good for the bank,” she said.
More than 20 years earlier he also appointed another woman as vice president.
He said that women often had to work harder to reach the same goals as men and recognized it as unfair.
Living in a household with a wife and three daughters, Pam, Jamie and Vicky, probably influence his thinking!
After starting as a bookkeeper, Archer worked his way up to teller and then president in 1960.
Archer once said he derived a great deal of satisfaction from watching his customers succeed.
“Sometimes it takes some pretty creative financing and a lot of trust,” he said in the 1985 retirement article, “but, gosh, it sure is worth it when it works out.”
In addition to being at the center of Charleston commerce for a number of years as a banker, Archer was active in the community.
He served on both the Charleston school board and the Lake Land College Board. According to clippings, he served as president of both at different times.
He served on the Linder Trust which evolved into the Charleston Area Charitable Foundation since it was created.
He also was named “Boss of the Year” in 1977 by the Charleston chapter of the American Business Women’s Association.
In 1998, the Coles County Historical Society honored him at its 35th Annual Founders Day Dinner.
“The leadership of Leonard Archer in the preservation of local history over the years has been exemplary,” a citation read. “As a bank official he gave guidance and support to numerous efforts to keep the history of our area available to all, especially the children.
“His and others’ efforts through the Charleston Area Charitable Foundation, known also as the Linder Trust, have kept local history in the forefront. Present and future generations will benefit as a result of his concern for preservation of our history,“ the historical society award concluded.
The banking scene certainly has changed through the years. Charleston had one bank in Archer’s early years and now has six banks plus savings institutions and even insurance offices handling some of the same transactions.
Part of the reason that Archer retired is that he battled cancer and underwent some surgeries.
But he lived more than 20 more years as a cancer survivor.
He also was a survivor of the Depression-era in which he grew up.
“It was a challenge to survive, and the importance of hard work was obvious,” he once said.
“We used horses then,” he said of growing up on the farm near Rardin, north of Charleston. “I plowed and cultivated and disced. It was such a hard way to make money. I decided at a pretty early age that I would try something else.”
And when he found something else — banking — he stayed at the same spot for almost 50 years.
It was the kind of career and community influence that we may not see much of again.
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