Shawano

AbbyBank is a local community bank serving Central and Eastern Wisconsin for over 50 years. We have eight full-service banking locations in Wisconsin offering a complete range of financial products and services including checking, savings, money market, CDs, IRAs, HSAs, and lending. Whether you are an individual, business or farmer, we can offer our customers our bank's strength, commitment to our local communities and knowledgeable staff. We are committed to being highly customer-focused and community driven - it's in our mission statement.

AbbyBank is proud to be located in the City of Shawano, Wisconsin, the county seat of Shawano County and located between the Wolf River and Shawano Lake, since 2019. AbbyBank established a branch in Shawano in the fall of 2019 from an acquisition transition with State Bank, increasing our total locations to seven by adding two new locations to our footprint, one of which is our branch conveniently located in the City of Shawano, on E. Green Bay Street, also known as Business Highway 29/Wisconsin Highway 22/47/55. Our Shawano branch is easily spotted, being located right across the street from Culvers. This location features two drive-thru lanes with a drive-up ATM and houses less than 10 employees.

The City of Shawano gets its name from Chief Sawanoh, a chief of the Menominee Native American tribe, whose band of Indians were the first inhabitants of the area on the banks of what is now Shawano Lake. At this time, Shawano County was primarily a land of beautiful forests, which is what initially drew the first white settlers to Shawano. In 1843, Samuel Farnsworth, who was looking to explore the area for lumbering operations, paddled up the Wolf River from New London to scout the land. Farnsworth returned to Neenah, where he resided, and secured the land along the Shawano Lake outlet west to the Wolf River, where he convinced Charles Wescott to establish a sawmill in the area. The following year in 1844, Wescott and his crew of men brought the machinery up the Wolf River on scow barges propelled by Indians using long poles, to form a settlement where the Wolf River meets the lake outlet. The early growth of the area is due exclusively to the lumber industry, where the waterways provided a quick form of transport for logs to the larger cities like OshKosh. By 1851, logging had spread out from Wescott's mill in Shawano to other rivers that flowed into the Wolf River and by 1853, the population of the region had grown to 254 inhabitants, which is when Shawanaw County was established as a separate county from sections of Oconto and Outagamie Counties and the area of the first settlement was named the county seat. In 1854, after the Menominee Indian Reservation was established, Sawanoh's band of Native Americans moved to the west bank of the Wolf River near Keshena. In 1864, the spelling of Shawanaw was changed to the present spelling of Shawano. After the county and seat were officially established, the population steadily increased and by the 1860s, had grown substantially. Where the forests had been cleared, the Germans came in large numbers in the mid 1860s to clear the stumps and rocks and farm the land. By 1871, the population in the area grew enough that Shawano was officially incorporated as a village and then in 1874, incorporated as the City of Shawano.

Today, Shawano is a city of approximately 9,000 and has transitioned from a lumbering city to a service and tourist-based economy with the city and surrounding areas, including Shawano Lake, a popular destination in the summer. Residents and visitors enjoy the 24 parks within the city, miles of hiking and biking trails and various water related activities on the Wolf River and Shawano Lake. Shawano is also home to the Shawano School District, comprised of four public schools for different ages and one public charter school. In addition, the city is home to several private schools for different ages and Northeast WI Technical College Shawano. The College of Menominee Nation and East-West University are nearby in Keshena.