In 1871, Edward Ivinson was already the owner of a successful dry goods store in Laramie when the opportunity to buy a bank presented itself.
Two years earlier, bankers H.J. Rogers and John Donnellan built Laramie’s first bank made with stone walls on 2nd street for $10,000. When the two ran into financial difficulties with their other business interests, they sold the bank to Posey S. Wilson for just $8,000; he then sold it to Ivinson for the same price only two months later.
Ivinson’s bank was a privately run institution for two years until he received a U.S. government charter to conduct business as the Wyoming National Bank of Laramie in 1873. He appointed his wife, Jane, to the bank’s board of directors. Throughout the years, other banks would challenge the Wyoming National Bank, but none of them posed any major threat to Ivinson. He sold his interest in the Wyoming National Bank in 1888.
Learn more about Edward Ivinson’s bank.