Montgomery First National Bank charter turns 100 in 2003

By Phil Ivers

Special to Business Today

SIKESTON -- How do you appropriately commemorate the life and legacy of a community bank when the history of its charter spans 100 years? The management team at Montgomery First National Bank is seeking an answer to that question with the 100th anniversary year of the charter only six months away.

The historical research 100 years back to the 1903 chartering is well under way and a special planning team is in place, but the plans for a year of observance are only beginning to take shape.

"Every business anniversary carries excitement and importance, but the 100-year milestone stands out as a true rarity in American business," bank Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Troy Wilson says. "We believe this calls for a serious reflection on and a well-planned observance of this century-old partnership of employees, directors, customers and communities.

"For starters," Wilson says, "we need to help people understand the special role that a bank charter plays in the historical development of a community."

For at least the first half of the 20th century, a bank charter was an extremely scarce resource for a community to obtain. Finding a dormant or "under utilized," but valid bank charter and purchasing it was just about the only way for a group of bank incorporators to bring a bank into their community.

On top of that challenge was the requirement that bank founders prove themselves financially and ethically worthy of the trust implicit with governmental granting of permission to operate a bank.

"The unlikelihood of even getting a bank charter back then partly explains why the history of a bank charter means so much," says Wilson. "Fused tightly into a charter's legacy is the character, the vision and determination of all the men and women who have conducted banking under its authority. It is that vibrant history and those human values that need to be celebrated when a charter reaches the century mark."

The First National Bank's charter originated in 1903 in Doniphan, Mo., when successful local businessman Thomas Lyon "T.L." Wright committed himself to opening the first bank in his hometown. Naming his bank initially the T.L. Wright Private Bank and later Doniphan State Bank, he allowed trusted family members, led by his oldest son, J.M. Wright, to operate the bank. That bank and the core family business, T. L. Wright Lumber Co., played a key role in the early development of the Doniphan area.

Tom Wright was a business visionary, able to anticipate how future changes and needs would create economic opportunity. His father had correctly anticipated the rising value of timberland in Ripley County -- land surrounding the Current and Little Black rivers, and he secured hundreds of timbered acres around the turn of the century.

Wright anticipated the business advantage of building the area's first sawmill and developing a company-owned lumbering community. He guessed correctly that being the first telephone system operator and the only newspaper publisher in the community could be profitable, while helping the area develop.

Watching the rapid ascent of the automobile, he was prepared to participate by repositioning his company into the sand and gravel business just as massive public investment into roads began. Later, his sons and daughters would reposition the business again, this time into the ready-mix cement business, as gravel and dirt roads were being replaced by miles of concrete highways.

In many ways, the story of the Wright family and the bank charter is the story of calculated risk-taking, successful business entrepreneurialism and the willingness to anticipate and lead business change.

The charter's long history is also a story of overcoming harsh adversity. At the onset of the Great Depression, as thousands of U.S. banks were in the process of being closed, Doniphan was also in the process of losing its banks, as the state closed the city's insolvent banks and sought successor owners.

The Wright family and their shareholders were the only bankers to emerge from this dark era with a bank charter. Renamed as Bank of Doniphan and recapitalized with additional new shareholders, the bank continued to be owned by and managed by the Wright family until 1955. By then the bank's leader, Joe Wright, wanted to retire and there were no family members to take over and chart a new course for the future.

Enter into the picture an aggressive group of Sikeston businessmen intent upon bringing a second bank into their community, but discovering that the state of Missouri was not willing to grant new bank charters at the time. Led by an entrepreneurial and aggressive area businessman by the name of Tom Baker, word of their intensive search for a bank charter somehow reached the Wright banking family and before long, the deal was on for the Wrights' bank to become Planters Bank and to be moved to Sikeston.

The new Planters Bank was operational in Sikeston only two years before controlling interest was purchased by businessman Joel A. Montgomery Sr., then a young 36-year-old Memphis, Tenn-based developer with strong Sikeston-area ties.

The Montgomery family has owned and operated the bank since the 1957 acquisition, converting it to a national charter and changing the name of the bank to The First National Bank in 1964.

"We didn't inherit much of a bank in 1957 when I purchased controlling interest," according to Joel Montgomery Sr., who still resides in Sikeston. "We were located in a small brick building in downtown Sikeston with about 10 employees and assets of $600,000, but we could see the potential and we realized the growing demand for a second bank option in our community.

"During the early years, we had a steady stream of new customers from inside and outside Sikeston whose banking business was simply declined by the older, big bank in town."

After 46 years of Montgomery family ownership and management, the bank today looks very little like the fledgling bank purchased in 1957, or the private bank that was first chartered in 1903.

Aggressive, yet tight family management and risk-taking, coupled with an internal culture of entrepreneurialism has allowed the bank to grow into the third largest independently-owned, family-operated bank in Missouri, with assets of more than $600 million.

Since its initial relocation to Sikeston, the bank has twice grown to the point of needing to build new a headquarters. In 1998, the legal name of the bank was changed to Montgomery First National Bank, in honor of modern founder Joel A. Montgomery Sr., although its name in all Southeast Missouri locations is still The First National Bank. Today, more than 200 employees are employed in six Southeast Missouri locations and six suburban St. Louis locations.

CEO Troy Wilson says, "The 100-year history of this bank charter is a remarkable story of business entrepreneurialism. It is about determination and sacrifice, setback and success, business vision and risk-taking. It is also a story about economic cooperation for the common good -- cooperation between local communities and local businesses that resulted in economic progress for both."

Wilson believes customers now more than ever want to experience the link between community history and locally-owned businesses.

"This banking company and its charter has been maintained here in our local communities for 100 years, offering careers to hundreds of employees and financial partnership to thousands of customers," says Wilson. "In return, the communities and their people have rewarded us with the loyalty we've leveraged to grow this large and strong.

"It is these positive values of strong character and faithful partnership that can be seen consistently through 100 years of history and right up to the present. And by the dawn of 2003, I'm confident we'll have found just the right way to commemorate and celebrate that business legacy."

Phil Ivers is a small-business owner and free-lance writer in Cape Girardeau.