Slipping Through Your Fingers: The Davis Family's Collapse
Chapter 4 of Shortfall is where everything falls apart. Not just for Walter Davis, but for every building and loan in Colorado Springs. And honestly, for the whole country.
Building and loan
Racketeers and Suckers: When the Depression Hit the Building and Loans
The 1920s were weird. People went from keeping their savings under the mattress to buying Liberty Bonds to throwing money at building and loan associations promising 7 percent interest. It happened fast. And if you lived in Colorado Springs, the whole town was riding this wave of easy money and big promises.
The Loan Man: How Building and Loans Actually Worked
Six years into Colorado Springs, Walter Davis quit being a stenographer and became a moneylender. By 1912 he was calling himself “The Loan Man” in the city directory. He still listed himself as an attorney, too. He was not an attorney.
Advertisements for Himself: Walter Davis and Colorado Springs
Walter Clyde Davis showed up in Colorado Springs in 1905. He was twenty-four. He carried business cards calling himself a lawyer from Greensburg, Indiana. He also had two letters of recommendation from judges. But those letters recommended him as a stenographer. Not a lawyer.
Shortfall by Alice Echols: A Hidden History of American Banking
You know George Bailey, right? Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life. The small-town banker who gives away his honeymoon money to save his neighbors from financial ruin. The guy who runs a building and loan association and is basically the most decent person alive.