Northwestern National Bank, Minneapolis

The Northwestern National Bank of Minneapolis opened its doors in 1872. During its long history, it survived locust plagues, economic panics, a major milling disaster, the turbulent times of the Great Depression, and a devastating fire. Acquisition of smaller banks and a growing list of services made it one of the top banking companies in the region. In 1929 it became a bank holding company organized as Northwestern Bancorporation (later Norwest Corporation). Norwest merged with Wells Fargo in 1998.

A group of Minneapolis businessmen met in April 1872 to create a new banking institution with $200,000 in capital. The board of directors of the new bank elected Dorilus Morrison, a successful flour miller with an interest in the Northern Pacific Railway, as its first president. The bank opened at 100 Washington Avenue South a few months later. Board member William Hood Dunwoody made the first deposit of $2,315.

Northwestern National Bank faced many trials in its first decade. The financial panic of 1873 forced many railroads into bankruptcy. Minnesota farmers lost crops to locust plagues in the mid-1870s. The Washburn A Mill explosion in 1878 impacted flour milling revenues. The bank lost one-fourth of its capital through wheat speculation by an assistant cashier. The bank, however, survived and continued to grow.

Minneapolis prospered during the 1880s. By 1887, the bank's capital had grown to more than $3.3 million. Needing more space, the bank moved to the Guaranty Loan Building (later the Metropolitan Building) in 1891. A second financial panic two years later caused five Minneapolis banks to fail, but Northwestern once again weathered the storm.

The early 1900s brought improvements to the bank. It started a women's department in 1901, enabling women to open their own bank accounts. In 1904, the bank moved to a new building at 411 Marquette Avenue and soon opened the first savings department in the city. Four years later, it began an affiliation with the Minnesota Loan and Trust Company and started to acquire smaller banks. By 1922, Northwestern National Bank offered city-wide banking services through a growing network of branch banks.

Just before the 1929 stock market crash, construction began on a new building located at Seventh Street and Marquette. The new headquarters, designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst, & White of Chicago, cost $6 million. Built of granite and marble, it stood sixteen stories tall and boasted 115 teller stations, a 318-foot banking lobby, and four vaults. The safe deposit vault featured 63.5-ton, nine-foot diameter door made of twenty-four-inch-thick drillproof and fireproof steel plates. An electric alarm system protected the vault's assets.

The Northwest Bancorporation (Banco) was organized in January 1929, and by year’s end had ninety-five banks in its holdings. When the bank moved to its new building in 1930, its deposits totaled $100,459,000. The new organization set goals to stabilize banking operations and provide the best possible standardized service to its customers. Banco strengthened its position through a formal merger with Minnesota Loan and Trust in 1934. Throughout the Great Depression, Banco managed its assets so successfully that not a single customer lost money.

The landmark seventy-eight-ton Weatherball sign appeared on the roof of the bank in 1949, shining out its first weather forecast on October 7. By 1957, twenty-one locations around the Twin Cities featured the trademark Weatherball signs. The Weatherball jingle helped people to remember the sign's color code:

When the Weatherball is glowing red,
Warmer weather's just ahead.
When the Weatherball is shining white,
Colder weather is in sight.
When the Weatherball is wearing green,
No weather changes are foreseen.
Colors blinking by night and day
Say precipitation's on the way.

On Thanksgiving Day in 1982, arsonists started a fire in the vacant Donaldson's Department Store building. The fire quickly spread and consumed the bank building, with total damages estimated at more than $75 million. After demolition of the old bank in March 1984, the fifty-seven-story Norwest Center (later Wells Fargo Center) rose in its place. The Weatherball survived the blaze, but plans for its restoration at the state fairgrounds were dropped. In 1983 the bank changed its name to Norwest Corporation and stopped using the Weatherball logo.

In 1998 Norwest merged with Wells Fargo Corporation to become the country's sixth-largest banking company.