By Tim Douglass

tdouglass@pctribune.com

Eagle Bank was honored last Thursday as the 2024 recipient of the Glenwood Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce Salute to Business and Industry award.

Ryan Gandrud, the fourth generation member of the Gandrud family who own and operate Eagle Bank, accepted the award at a special luncheon at Lakeside Ballroom last Thursday.  The event, hosted by the Glenwood Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce, attracted nearly 100 people.

After Sara Hoffner, executive director of Glenwood Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce presented the award, Rep. Paul Anderson, Sen. Torrey Westrom and John R. Stone congratulated Eagle Bank from the podium.

Anderson, said he was honored to be able to congratulate Pope County Bank and now Eagle Bank on receiving the award.  Anderson, who also farms south of Lake Minnewaska, said he received his first lesson in banking from the retired Ralph Gaffaney, who was a loan officer at Eagle Bank for many years.

He said Gaffaney told him all the basics about getting an agricultural loan at the time, emphasizing that “I would have to pay the money back.”

Anderson noted the long history of Eagle Bank (100 years) in the community and said the bank has played a “vital role in our community” from Dick Gandrud to his grandson Ryan.  Anderson pointed out that Minnesota is third in the nation when it comes to locally owned independent banks.  He emphasized that Eagle Bank was one of those banks and thanked them for their commitment and investment into “our town and our communities.”

Westrom said Eagle Bank “is a well-deserved recipient of this award.” He talked about how as Eagle Bank expanded, his business office in Elbow Lake is now directly across the alley from Eagle Bank.  “I know first hand the great things they do and the people at Eagle Bank,” he said.

He told those at the luncheon that the community was “blessed to have two strong local community banks in Eagle Bank and Glenwood State Bank and said Glenwood is “the envy of most other communities.”

He said that almost every successful business or farmer in the area usually starts with a strong, local bank, thanking Eagle Bank for its commitment to the community.

John R. Stone, speaking on behalf of the Glenwood Development Corporation as well as the City of Glenwood, said it was appropriate for the community to celebrate Eagle Bank because of its 100-year history in the community.  “We are a better place because you are here,” he said.  “So thank you for being here.”

Most of the Gandrud family and employees of Eagle Bank were at the luncheon, including long-time Eagle Bank President Richard Gandrud, 96, who attended with his wife, Lorraine.  His two sons, Erick  (President) and John (Vice President) are officers at Eagle Bank, as is grandson Ryan Gandrud, who spoke at the luncheon on behalf of Eagle Bank.

A brief history 

of Eagle Bank

Ryan Gandrud thanked the speakers “for your kind words” and gave a brief history of Eagle Bank and provided a slide show of the historic buildings occupied by Pope County Bank, then Pope County State Bank and now Eagle Bank.  

According to Ryan Gandrud, the origin of the present bank was the former Fremad Association, which was organized in 1874 by C.T. Wollan, M.A. Wollan, Ben Wollan, Jorgen Aal and Benjamin Troen.

The Fremad Association was a general store in Glenwood selling groceries and general merchandise. At that time, the town really had no financial service, and as patrons of the Fremad Association accumulated more cash than they wished to keep at home, they asked the people at the Fremad store to keep their money for them. The store had a large safe, and they trusted the storekeepers. 

What then evolved from there was something like this:  Tim, who lived on the farm five miles south of town, owed his neighbor, Matt, five dollars. So, when Matt was going to town, Tim gave him a little note instructing the Wollans at the store to transfer five dollars from his envelope in the safe to Matt’s envelope.  Thus, a form of checking accounts evolved. That practice grew, and soon the amount of money in the safe was a cause for concern.  

To add to that concern of the Fremad Association, the James’ Brothers Gang attempted the well-known robbery in Northfield, Minn. So, M.A. Wollan gathered up all the cash in a bag and took it to the Scandinavian American bank in Minneapolis for safekeeping.  

After some discussion the Minneapolis bankers, to Wollan’s great surprise, told him that he was in the banking business.  The Fremad people then decided they should organize an informal bank, which started as the Fremad Association Bank, in the 1890’s.

Since the banking business continued to grow, they formally organized the Pope County Bank in December 1901 as a private bank and continued to operate in the Fremad building.

In 1906 they built a new separate building next to the Fremad building.  The account in the local newspaper at the time stated, “It will be a full two stories and basement, of solid brick, with a handsome cut stone front, and will cost close to $10,000.”  That building, recently occupied by attorney’s Jeff Kuhn and Brianna Zuber-Beckwith, was demolished last fall, along with the Fremad Building.

In 1908, they decided to change from a private bank to a state-chartered bank, so it then became the Pope County State Bank.

The Pope County State Bank remained in that building for over 60 years until October 11, 1971 when it moved into its new building at the present location on the corner of Franklin and Minnesota Avenue. 

In 1982, Pope County Bank opened a branch Villard.

On January 5, 1995 the Pope County State Bank completed an acquisition of the Bank of Elbow Lake and the State Bank of Wendell.  These banks were merged into, and now operate as branches of the Pope County State Bank.  This expansion provided excellent geographic diversification and added solid strength to the organization.

Because of this, on October 20, 1995 the name was changed to Eagle Bank to better reflect the bank’s enlarged geographic area.

In the summer of 2014, Eagle Bank acquired the bank in Starbuck, which for many years had operated as the 1st National Bank of Starbuck – a natural fit for the Eagle Bank system.

The operation today consists of a true community bank with a physical presence in five communities: Glenwood, Villard, Elbow Lake, Wendell, and the most recent acquisition, Starbuck. The bank offers a number of deposit products for both personal and business needs, including checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit, safe-deposit boxes, among number of other products and services. Eagle Bank takes the deposits on hand and uses them to reinvest into the community in the form of loans. “We have a wide array of loan products that consists of personal/consumer loans for cars, trucks, atvs, etc., home loans, Helocs, as well as a commercial/business loans such as commercial equipment loans, operating lines of credit, and commercial RE loans, according to Ryan Gandrud. “We are also heavily invested in the AG community with equipment loans, operating lines of credit, and AG RE loans. We also have a full suite of online and mobile banking products and services for both personal and business use as well.”

Additionally, the bank offers financial services in the areas of insurance and investments. Eagle Insurance Agency has a wide array of insurance products including Home, Auto, Business, Life, and Health. Eagle Financial Services specializes in retirement planning, investment options ranging from stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, as well as life insurance options.

Eagle Bank is very much committed to the community, outside of the bank. It conducts a number of planned bank volunteering opportunities such as hosting United Way’s backpack attack, cleaning ditches in the adopt-a-highway program, and its employee lunch program (where employees take turns preparing lunches on Fridays, and the donations raised are allocated to a quarterly charity). Aside from the planned volunteering events, Eagle Bank has a number of employees who volunteer their time or participate in communities’ activities on their own with organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and Welcome Center’s BOD, volunteer fire department members, wildlife organization committee members, Lions clubs, the humane society, Rotary club, and Waterama, just to name a few.