A Fremont bank becomes a regional institution
Augustus E. Rice and John W. Pero opened their bank on Croghan Street in Fremont on July 25, 1888. The bank’s history records $10,000 of starting capital, incorporation two years later and the 1904 purchase of the property that became its current main office. A 1955 consolidation produced the Croghan Colonial name. Expansion followed into Green Springs and, over later decades, into additional northern Ohio communities. The story is one of a local institution extending its reach through offices and combinations, while keeping Fremont at its center. [3]
The FDIC now identifies The Croghan Colonial Bank, certificate 13341, as an active Ohio state-chartered Federal Reserve member bank headquartered at 323 Croghan Street. Federal Reserve membership describes its supervisory framework; it does not make the bank part of the central bank or imply that its shareholders have a government guarantee. [1]
Ownership and the wider service area
Croghan Bancshares, Inc. owns all of the bank’s shares. The parent was incorporated in 1983, with the subsequent holding-company reorganization becoming part of the bank’s history. Its common shares trade under CHBH. The 2025 annual report describes commercial and retail banking alongside trust services, and explicitly distinguishes investment products that carry no FDIC insurance from bank deposits. Parent-company stock, trust investments and an insured savings account are different kinds of financial claims. [4]
The bank describes its core community footprint across Sandusky, Erie, Huron, Lucas, Ottawa and Seneca counties. Its office directory ranges from Bellevue and Clyde to Port Clinton and Tiffin, and separately identifies commercial-services offices in Maumee and Strongsville. A commercial-services location and a full-service deposit branch need not offer identical facilities. The office labels are therefore more informative than treating every location on a map as interchangeable. [5]
Financing everyday business and larger projects
Croghan offers small-business loans, commercial-real-estate loans, government-backed small-business financing, equipment loans and equipment leasing. Its stated uses include inventory, machinery, property purchases and expansion. The bank describes a one-to-one process with commercial lenders, but approval remains conditional on credit review. A promise of personal attention is a service proposition; it does not remove the need to assess repayment capacity, collateral and the borrower’s ability to withstand a weaker period. [6]
Equipment and buildings both help a business operate, yet their cash-flow patterns differ. A machine may generate revenue through repeated production, while a rental building depends on tenants, rents and maintenance costs. Construction introduces a further stage before the completed property can earn income. A lender’s underwriting and follow-through must accommodate those differences rather than relying only on the value of what is pledged.
The other side of the balance sheet
Croghan’s business savings offering includes statement savings, tiered high-yield savings and money-market options. It presents the accounts as ways to manage business reserves and earn interest on cash not immediately needed. A business may use those reserves for taxes, payroll or an unexpected expense, so the bank has to plan for withdrawals as well as loan demand. Product descriptions establish the available services, not the behavior of every depositor. [7]
The parent’s July 2026 financial statement reported $130 million of borrowings at June 30, compared with $145 million at the end of 2025. It also reported a negative securities valuation allowance of $19.2 million. These consolidated disclosures add context beyond customer deposits: borrowing can provide additional funding, while changes in security values can affect reported capital before a security is sold. Those group figures are separate from the insured-bank comparisons below. [8]
A larger loan book and higher first-half profit
At June 30, 2026, the bank alone had $1.415 billion of assets, $1.093 billion of deposits, $883.9 million of net loans and leases, and $141.9 million of equity. The comparable June 2025 balances were $1.179 billion of assets, $983.8 million of deposits and $740.6 million of net loans. First-half net income increased to $8.1 million from $5.5 million. These are FDIC bank-level amounts converted from thousands. [2]
Nonaccrual loans declined to $644,000 from $785,000. At the latest date, real-estate-secured loans were $752.6 million, including $412.4 million secured by nonfarm nonresidential property and $109.4 million of construction and land-development loans. These categories reveal the importance of property finance. The low reported nonaccrual balance is a favorable observation at one date, not a prediction that newly originated loans will remain trouble-free. [2]
Community performance is a different kind of test
The Federal Reserve’s September 25, 2023 CRA evaluation rated Croghan Outstanding overall. Its lending test was Satisfactory and its community-development test Outstanding. Examiners described excellent responsiveness to community-development needs and reasonable geographic distribution of lending overall, while noting lending gaps in the assessment areas. The mortgage analysis covered 2018–2022. Those dates and distinctions matter: a favorable overall rating does not say every lending measure was exceptional or that today’s credit risk has been assessed. [9]
The evaluation addresses service to community credit needs, including lower-income borrowers and neighborhoods. It expressly does not assess the bank’s financial condition or safety and soundness. It should sit beside the financial statements, rather than replace them, when explaining what is publicly known about the institution. No exhaustive clean-regulatory-record claim follows from that one evaluation. [9]
For a regional bank, success through the next cycle depends on the interaction of local demand, borrower repayment and funding costs. A long history can support durable relationships, but it cannot settle those future outcomes. The useful distinction is between the current evidence of earnings and loan performance and the uncertainty attached to the larger book of commitments still working its way through the economy.
Sources
- FDIC identity; October 2, 2026 indexOfficial sourceBack to text: ↑
- FDIC bank financials; June 2026 and 2025; income year-to-dateOfficial sourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- Bank history; checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- Parent annual report for 2025Filing / report · PDFBack to text: ↑
- Bank footprint and locations; checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- Business lending; checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- Business savings; checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- Parent quarterly report, July 2026Filing / report · PDFBack to text: ↑
- Federal Reserve CRA evaluation, September 25, 2023Official sourceBack to text: ↑1↑2