Customers being paid off in Oklahoma bank failure

July 8, 1982

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation began paying customers of the failed Penn Square Bank of Oklahoma City -- only the third takeover by the government body in half a century.

Penn Square, Oklahoma City's fourth-largest bank and an aggressive lender to enterprises in the troubled oil and gas business, was officially declared insolvent Tuesday evening. It was the 21st US bank to fold this year and the largest to fail in Oklahoma since the depression. Nearly all other failed banks were absorbed by healthier banks in deals arranged by the government.