Date: 1856

 

Description: This walnut wood desk is an interesting hodgepodge of different events in Sioux City’s history. The rolltop style was the kind mainly used by engineers and real estate agents, professions that attracted the first big businessmen to Sioux City. This particular desk was owned by George Weare, known as the city’s first banker. Weare was a native of Vermont but his family quickly moved west to Michigan and then on to Cedar Rapids. In Cedar Rapids Weare entered the banking business and sought to spread business farther west. He arrived in Sioux City in 1855 when the town was barely more than a hamlet with a few log cabins. He founded a new bank there and quickly became one of the most prominent men in Sioux City. Weare was a shrewd businessmen, and rumors say that he would sit at this desk just inside the door of his bank and by the time a customer had taken the three or four steps necessary to speak with him he had already made up his mind whether or not to grant the man a loan. He was also a major financier of public development projects that helped the new city gain its footing. The desk itself is thought to have come upstream from the Steamboat Omaha, like so many other Sioux City dwellers at that time.

 

Donor information not available

 

On display at the Pierce Mansion