If it is “many” banks in “several” states, then that would imply that those states would be mostly the ones with the worst exposure to the current housing market mess, wouldn’t it? If that is the case, would the Secretaries of State of California, Arizona, Florida and a couple of others be the ones to ask about this? They all have to maintain lists of corporations in their states.
In other instances, a failing or endangered bank is taken over by another, stronger bank. These usually do not appear on the FDIC list but are announced by press releases that can be searched for on the internet.
Anybody can go to:
www.fdic.gov
and find a link on their home web page to a complete list of failures that goes back several years. This info is not hidden, only deemed to be not newsworthy unless it is a fairly sizeable, well known bank.
Mah piggy bank done went bust.