Location: US 76 at Seashore Street in Wrightsville Beach
County: New Hanover
Original Date Cast: 1986
In 1870 the legislature ratified an act permitting the organization and operation of “Homestead and Building Associations” in North Carolina. Local organizations were incorporated soon thereafter. The first was the Mechanics Building and Loan Association established in Greensboro in 1872. Eighteen such groups were chartered prior to 1900.
Recognizing the need for a statewide organization to represent the growing industry, representatives of groups from Charlotte, Wilmington, Wadesboro, Winston-Salem, Tarboro, Wilson, Mooresville, and elsewhere gathered at the Seashore Hotel in Wrightsville Beach on June 25, 1903, to form the North Carolina Building & Loan Association League. (The Seashore Hotel stood on the site later occupied by the Ocean Terrace and today by the Blockade Runner Hotel.)
The organization had three purposes: 1) to keep non-North Carolina institutions out of the state, 2) to secure favorable legislation in the General Assembly, and 3) to serve as a forum of exchange of views and as a social gathering. Samuel Wittkowsky of Charlotte was elected as the first president. The trade association over the years underwent several name changes. In December 1996 what was then the North Carolina League of Savings Institutions merged with the North Carolina Bankers Association.
References:
Public Laws of North Carolina (1869-70)
Wilmington Morning Star, June 26, 1903
E. Y. Keesler, History of Building and Loans in the United States (1931)
E. D. Kuykendall Jr., “84 Years of Savings and Loan in North Carolina,” North Carolina Savings and Loan Review (June 1956)
Directory of the North Carolina League of Savings Institutions (1985)