FIRST - Credit Union in the South - First of its Kind on Waymarking.com

In North Carolina, credit unions formed initially to alleviate the economic difficulties plaguing Tar Heel farmers. Touring Europe, John Sprunt Hill, a banker from Durham, had been impressed with how European credit unions assisted farmers (The first credit union was formed in 1864 to provide financial services for struggling German farmers). Concerned that Tar Heel farmers suffered from exorbitant loan interest rates, Hill and Clarence Poe, editor of the historically agrarian The Progressive Farmer, persuaded the General Assembly to pass the Credit Union Act of 1915.

In late 1915, North Carolinians led the South in the establishment of credit unions. That year, John Hill convinced Durham countians near Lowe’s Grove to organize the Lowe’s Grove Credit Union. The credit union was chartered on December 9, 1915 and opened for business the next year. This association, writes political scientist William Hays Simpson, was the “first co-operative short-time credit society to be established in the South under legislative sanction.”

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