Dain Rauscher Wessels was one of the nation's largest full-service securities firms with 1,300 private client and institutional investment executives, 3,600 employees and in 1998 revenues of more than $740 million.

However, with the stock market crash of 1929, Merrill Cohen took control of Dain & Co. in 1933 and helped steer it through the Great Depression and into the 1940s.

[1] Wheelock Whitney was named the head of Dain in 1963 and steered the firm through aggressive growth in the 1960s leading to its initial public offering in 1972.

Dain also acquired a number of regional brokerages including J. Cliff Rahal & Co. (1969), Platt, Tschudy & Co. (1970), Woodward-Elwood (1972) and Ralph W. Davis & Co. (1972).

In 1979 management decided to merge the two businesses creating one of the leading brokerage firms in the midwest, under the brand Dain Bosworth.

[1] In 1981, Inter-Regional Financial Group acquired Rauscher Pierce Refsnes, which at the time was the largest brokerage firm in Texas.

While the Dain Rauscher name was initially used in a number of RBC businesses after the acquisition, the brand was slowly phased out over time.