How did large banks reconcile accounts in the pre-industrial/electric era?

Question

If I opened an account at, say, Wells Fargo in San Francisco in 1860, then sailed down to Los Angeles and wanted to withdraw money, how did the bank know how much I had in my account?

And the same question going back further, like with the Knights Templar.

In: 5

Answer 1

Banks didn’t have branches back in the day. They were single location institutions. The idea of chains, businesses with multiple locations in general wasn’t a 19th century thing.