ESTES PARK, Colo.-Few photos are as iconic to credit unions as that shown below, the 1934 meeting in Colorado at which the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) would be formed. Like so many other events in history, it came about as the result of one person's vision, happenstance, and compromise.
According to several accounts, when the Illinois Credit Union League met in Chicago on March 17, 1934, Timothy J. O'Shaughnessy, president of the Rock Island Line Credit Union invited credit union leaders from eight states to attend, including such CU pioneers as Edward A. Filene and Roy F. Bergengren, who had already organized the Credit Union National Extension Bureau, and credit union organizers Thomas W. Doig, and Claude R. Orchard. One evening O'Shaughnessy raised the issue of a national association, and one account indicates the idea was received with enthusiasm. Filene called for a meeting to create the bylaws and a constitution, which Bergengren strongly seconded.
Orchard proposed that the meeting take place in a national park in Colorado in August, as it would require many to have to take vacation time in order to attend. The park had been a favorite of Orchard, and a CUNA account said that "Bergengren found the site on his map about three inches to the Pacific Coast and six inches to the Atlantic. We felt that this location would give the Far West a break."
A meeting was set for the week of Aug. 5. O'Shaughnessy, president of a railroad CU, arranged for extra Pullman cars to run from Chicago to Denver on the Rock Island Line for the convenience of those delegates converging on Chicago.
In all, 52 delegates, representing 20 states and the District of Columbia, arrived at the campsite by Aug. 8 when the first meetings were held. Other familiar names in attendance included credit union organizers Dora Maxwell, Louise McCarren and Agnes Gartland.
One CUNA account recalled that the meetings often ran long into the night and were at times "heated." To keep minds fresh, meetings were broken up by recreational times that included hiking, horseback riding and games of baseball.
The final meeting was held in the early afternoon of Friday, Aug. 10, according to CUNA, and the last details of the bylaws were put into place. "The miracle had been accomplished," said Bergengren before the group posed for the famous photograph by Fred Clatworthy, Jr., was shot. For a longer account: www.cuna.org/irc/archive8_1.html.
