In 1912, The Bank of Folkston and The Citizens Bank fought for survival.

Photo shows the Bank of Folkston as it looked in 1908. Standing at left is the bank's cashier, Frank Mills, talking with customer Clyde Wainwright. The building was built in 1906 and was Folkston's first commercial masonry building.

Frank Mills stood in the front door of Folkston's first bank, The Bank of Folkston. Mills was the cashier of the new bank organized in Liberty County by the Liberty County Banking Company, of Ludowici, Georgia.

Talking with Mills was a bank customer, Clyde Wainwright. The population of Folkston at that time was just over 350. It was 1908 and the new bank was two years old.

The two stood on narrow boards at the front door of the bank that formed sidewalks in the sands of Folkston's Main Street. That year, 1908, The 1906 Colony Company was beginning to move forward in Homeland. The Charlton County Commissioners had voted to open a road to "The Colony" leading from Folkston into the booming new community, which is today the City of Homeland.

It was a busy year for all of Charlton County. In St. George the 1904 Colony Company was enjoying unexpected real estate sales on lands acquired from the railroads.

A handful of well-heeled Ludowici businessmen decided Charlton County would be a good place to open a new bank, to go along with their bank in Ludowici. Prospects for growth in Folkston never seemed brighter.

The group bought land on Folkston's Main Street and began to build their bank. It was 1906. In April of that year San Francisco endured its greatest earthquake, killing thousands. The Bank of Folkston would be built of brick. Only one other commercial building in the town was masonry, the Charlton County Courthouse built in 1901 and 1902. The new bank would include a vault of masonry and steel.

Talk was circulating in the town in 1908 that a Pennsylvania lumberman was looking toward buying thousands of acres of the Okefenokee Swamp to cut and sell the giant cypress trees. Hebard made the purchase from the State of Georgia in 1910.

The Bank of Folkston operated successfully for its first five years. Then some of the bank customers began to talk of having their own "home owned" bank. Ben Scott, Ben McDonald and William Mizell, Sr. took the lead.

Scott was building his new Arnold Hotel across the railroad tracks from the Bank of Folkston. The three decided to organize a new bank, The Citizens Bank, with its first offices on the ground floor of Scott's Arnold Hotel. In 1911 the organizers met at the hotel and decided to seek a bank charter. It was granted quickly and in 1912 the Citizens Bank opened in Scott's Arnold Hotel. Scott became the Citizens Bank's first president. Donald Pearce of Whigham, Georgia was brought on board as the Citizens Bank's bookkeeper, just two months after the bank opened.

Customers at the Bank of Folkston began to withdraw their funds and transfer them to the new bank. The withdrawals crippled the Bank of Folkston. It was left with scores of unpaid loans to less affluent residents, but the big money moved to the Citizens Bank.

In 1913, just a year after the Citizens Bank opened, the Bank of Folkston went into the hand of the receivers, unable to pay its bills. L. E. Mallard was named Receiver; to collect any money paid into the Bank of Folkston after it closed its doors. Very little was paid.

In 1911 the Bank of Folkston had deposits of $30,000 dollars and loans of $46,000 dollars. In February of 1912 its deposits had dropped to less than $16,000 dollars with loans of $24,000 dollars.

In just two months after opening, the new Citizens Bank counted deposits of $28,000 dollars and loans of $10,000 dollars. The new bank had siphoned off the best business of the Bank of Folkston.

In 1926, the Citizens Bank moved into its new bank building on the corner of Folkston's First Street and Main Street. The Citizens Bank was sold by the Mizell interest to Jack Lester of Saint Simons Island in the late 1960s. Lester built a new bank on Love Street and U. S. 1, where it stands today as the Southeastern Bank.

But for Folkston and Charlton County, the opening of the town's first bank, The Bank of Folkston, had marked the coming of a new day for the county's economy. It opened in grand style in the town's first commercial masonry building. Some of those helping to cut the ribbon opening the Bank of Folkston in 1906 were among those organizing its competition just five years later.

The building vacated by the Bank of Folkston became a landmark on Folkston's Main Street. Over the years it has housed the offices of Dr. A. D. Williams, Dr. William J. Schneider, the timber company offices of Theo Dinkins, and several other businesses. Upstairs has been used as a telephone office occupied by a telephone operator who plugged cords into a simple switchboard to connect callers. Many of those operators lived in the same quarters with the switchboard. Today that first telephones switchboard is in the Charlton County Archives Building. Folkston's Norris Johnson still has copies of deposit slips of his grandfather, Judge J. H. Johnson who banked at the Bank of Folkston during its formative years. That's about all that's left of Folkston's first bank.