The Growing Years...

In 1903, Provident was serving a changing Baltimore and its directors felt secure enough to negotiate to buy the site of the old Saratoga Hotel, at the southwest corner of Howard and Saratoga Streets. This Romanesque-style strongbox of a building with bronze doors, marble floors, electric chandeliers and two tellers’ windows, was designated as the new Central Office location. It was one of the few banks spared from the Great Baltimore Fire that swept through the city’s commercial business district on February 7 & 8, 1904.

This auto show was held at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore in 1935 as the country was making its first strides to recover from the Depression.

President Frank W. Wrightson, inspecting employees who were ready to offer souvenir banks and roses at the 1949 renovation ceremony for the Central Office at Howard & Saratoga Streets in downtown Baltimore, led Provident from 1941 to 1960.

In 1929, when the stock market crashed, several Baltimore banks failed and others—including Provident—began to be hit by depositor runs. During these troubled times, employees often worked 14-hour days as depositors demanded their funds. In March 1933, Governor Albert C. Ritchie closed all Maryland banks for a "bank holiday." When they reopened, he requested that banks only pay out five percent of the face value of a passbook. Provident’s President Charles C. Duke refused and maintained that Provident depositors’ money was always available on demand. Provident became a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as soon as the federal program was created. The Depression was a trying time and Provident employees worked from 1930 to 1938 without pay raises.

As the country emerged from the depression, Provident’s new president, Frank W. Wrightson, brought new energy and ideas to the bank through consumer loans and a more aggressive mortgage department. After World War II, the Bank established itself as a leader and built whole neighborhoods with loans to builders and followed up with mortgages for home purchases. Returning GIs found that the residential sections of Catonsville, Arbutus, Hamilton, Gardenville, Parkville and Towson had gone from empty lots to settled communities because of the Bank’s financial involvement.