Thompson wasn’t in his office but at his mansion, Oak Hill. Hackney declined to answer and suggested the reporter determine for himself. From conversations he had had with businessmen and bankers in New York and on board the train west, the reporter got the distinct impression that Thompson was reacting coolly to the distressing turn of events. Inside the bank, the reporter met not the inimitable J.V. Scores of wealthy families were allied with Thompson. But the town relied on Thompson and coal like a dying man depends on oxygen: it couldn’t get enough of either. lose their hard-earned savings?Īnd what about Uniontown itself? Beautiful Uniontown, nestled below the crest of Summit Ridge in southwestern Pennsylvania, was sassy, brassy and to outward appearances, booming. What would happen to the bank and its thousands of small depositors, many newly arrived in the United States? Would the immigrant miners who had placed their trust in J. What would become of the Thompson holdings, four hundred thousand acres of rich coal lands spreading south from Fayette, Greene and Washington counties in Pennsylvania into West Virginia? With the vaunted Thompson empire, estimated at seventy million dollars, crumbling, speculation ran wild. Instead of its relatively obscure role as Fayette County seat and the financial center of the bituminous coal region, Uniontown had become something of a phenomenon and curiosity. The news electrified the nation, or at least those served by the Pittsburgh, New York and Philadelphia newspapers. The order had been preceded by a report disclosing widespread banking irregularities, including the charge that bank president Thompson had dipped into the bank till for “personal” loans. Comptroller of the Currency had opened the First National Bank, until recently rated by the New York Financier newspaper the outstanding national bank in the country. The bank’s doors were shut tight to the public. As the local newspapers were quick to proclaim, especially now in the midst of crisis, Thompson was the champion of coal, of the little man, and of the little city, Uniontown, population eleven thousand. Some said the building, constructed by Thompson in 1902, was J.V.’s way of thumbing his nose at the steelmakers of Pittsburgh, the tycoons of iron. The ornate ground floor of the eleven story “skyscraper” at the corner of Main and Pittsburgh streets was Uniontown’s most familiar business address. Stepping off at the Pennsylvania Railroad station, the unidentified reporter hurried to Thompson’s office at the First National Bank building. Thompson, and the ruin of his bank, summoned a reporter from the New York Tribune to the Fayette County seat. The financial collapse of coal baron Josiah V. In Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in January 1915, it had one. Nothing captures the attention of the press more than a good scandal.
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