ST. PAUL BANK FOR COOPERATIVES:

The St. Paul Bank for Cooperatives was founded October 12, 1933 to provide financing to farmer cooperatives. The bank was one of thirteen banks for cooperatives created by the Farm Credit System in 1933. The St. Paul Bank for Cooperatives was initially chartered to do business in the Seventh Farm Credit District, which comprised the states of Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. Borrowers shared in the revenue earned by the bank through the allocation of earnings as patronage refunds. These patronage payments lowered the effective interest rates paid on loans. In the 1990s credit was administered through four lending teams: Federated Cooperative Systems, Rural Utility, Processing and Marketing, and Financial Services and Integrated Agribusiness.

In 1980 the St. Paul bank entered a period of joint management with the Federal Land Bank and Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of St. Paul, essentially losing its identity until 1988. It was then separated from joint management and rechartered with authority to provide financial services to farmer cooperatives and related entities throughout the United States. In 1999 the St. Paul Bank for Cooperatives merged with Denver-based CoBank, a larger bank within the Farm Credit System that was itself created in a 1989 merger of eleven of the Farm Credit System's thirteen Banks for Cooperatives (the twelfth bank consolidated with CoBank in 1995). This merger resulted in a bank with assets of approximately $22 billion. Headquarters of the combined bank was at Denver. At the time of the merger the St. Paul bank had assets of about $2.3 Billion, and served approximately 600 agricultural cooperative and rural utility customers in the upper Midwest.

The bank's first president was Hutzel Metzger, who served from 1933 to 1951. Other presidents were Herbert M. Knipfel (1952-1958), Lloyd L. Ullyot (1958-1969), Oren Shelley (1969-1974), Burgee Amdahl (1974-1986), Larry Buegler (1986-1990), and Dennis A. Johnson (1990-1999).

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These materials are an assemblage of "historical" materials sent to the Minnesota Historical Society by the St. Paul Bank for Cooperatives at the time of the merger with CoBank (1999). Annual reports that were received with this group of materials were transferred to the MHS serials collection.

The collection does not include operating or corporate records of the bank. It does include a copy of the bank's charter and bylaws (1993); transcripts of videotaped oral history interviews conducted in 1991 with retired presidents Ullyot, Shelley, and Burgee; and a merger proposal (1999) outlining the proposed merger of St. Paul Bank for Cooperatives with and into CoBank. There are photographs of each of the bank's presidents; speeches made by president Dennis A. Johnson and bank official Stu Peterson at conferences, workshops, and banquets; and a copy of a script for a one-man play portraying founding bank president Metzger (1992).

Many of the bank's "historical" records were apparently lost during the period when it was under the joint management of the Federal Land Bank and the Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of St. Paul (1980-1988).

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. St. Paul Bank for Cooperatives Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 15,690

Processing Information:

Processed by: David B. Peterson, January 2003

Catalog ID number: 990017378900104294

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Annual reports are in the Minnesota Historical Society serials collection.

Newsletters published by the bank are in the Minnesota Historical Society serials collection.

A fiftieth anniversary history of the bank is in the Minnesota Historical Society book collection.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Agricultural industries.

Agriculture -- Finance.

Agriculture, Cooperative.

Bank mergers.

Banks and banking, Cooperative -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Consolidation and merger of corporations.

Cooperation.

Cooperative societies.

Financial institutions -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Financial services industry.

Rural credit.

Persons:

Amdahl, Burgee.

Buegler, Larry.

Johnson, Dennis A.

Knipfel, Herbert M., 1896-1958.

Metzger, Hutzel, 1894-.

Shelley, Oren.

Ullyot, Lloyd L., 1904-1998.

Organizations:

Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of St. Paul (Saint Paul, Minn.).

Federal Land Bank of Saint Paul.

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