Work and industry · Riverton
Riverton's two Cinnaminson bank buildings
1909 town account, historic-district inventory and later history compared
The Cinnaminson National Bank began in a store, built at 611 Main Street in 1907, and later moved across the street to a new bank at 604 Main. The earlier building still tells a different part of Riverton's financial history.
From a store counter to a purpose-built bank
A 1909 Christmas issue of Riverton's New Era says Cinnaminson National Bank opened February 4, 1907, with $25,000 in capital. It operated temporarily in Joseph M. Roberts's store and moved into its new East Main Street building in October. The issue gave a $12,000 building cost and praised the bank's success. Those figures and promotional judgments are the newspaper's contemporary account, not audited financial statements. The Riverton Historic District inventory identifies the surviving brick Beaux Arts building as 611 Main Street and dates it to 1907.
The bank across the street
Historian Paul W. Schopp's account for the Historical Society of Riverton says the bank gained trust powers in 1928, reorganized as Cinnaminson Bank & Trust, and built a new 604 Main Street office designed by Philadelphia firm Davis, Dunlap & Barney. The 611 and 604 addresses therefore refer to different buildings in the same institution's story. A 2012 historical-society post-office study says the former 611 Main bank building subsequently served as a post office in the 1930s. Neither building should be confused with 609 Main, another former post-office address.
Was it Riverton's first bank?
The historic-district inventory calls Cinnaminson National the town's first bank. A 1993 Historical Society of Riverton retrospective, however, says the Riverton Savings Bank opened in April 1904. The narrower supported description is that Cinnaminson National was an early purpose-built bank and a successor in local banking, not unequivocally Riverton's first banking institution. The 1904 savings bank's charter and exact relationship to the 1907 bank would need original records to resolve.
Read the street
Compare the 1909 New Era photograph with the former bank exterior at 611 Main, then locate the later 604 Main building across the street. The map point is an address-range estimate for 611 Main, not a surveyed doorway. Both are occupied buildings; view from the public sidewalk and check current use before planning a visit. The earlier Roberts store fire adds another chapter to Main Street's changing commercial blocks.
Sources and research limits
- New Era Christmas issue, 1909, “Cinnaminson National Bank” — Contemporary opening and move account with a photograph.
- National Register nomination, Riverton Historic District, inventory for 611 Main Street — Building date, address and architectural description.
- Paul W. Schopp, Historical Society of Riverton, 2011 — Later 604 Main building and institutional history.
- Gaslight News, May 1993 — Retrospective claim for the earlier 1904 Riverton Savings Bank.
- Historical Society of Riverton, post-office chronology, May 2012 — Later use of 611 Main.
The map locates the former 611 Main building by a Census street-address interpolation. It does not imply public interior access.