Charlton Gets Its First Bank!

Charlton county residents thought they had arrived, at last, when the county's first bank opened its doors on the sand streets of Folkston. It was 1908.

The nation was involved in a heated political race for the White House. President Theodore Roosevelt was not running for re-election, but two-time loser, William Jennings Bryan was running again, this time against William Howard Taft. Taft won overwhelmingly.

The men of Charlton County were talking very little national politics; in addition, women were not allowed to vote.

The interest in Folkston and Charlton County came around the town of 300 getting its first bank. It would be organized by a group of men living in Ludowici, and incorporated as Liberty Banking Company of Ludowici. The new bank would be named, simply, the Bank of Folkston.

The town's first masonry commercial building took just a few months to build on the southeast corner of First and Main. The streets were unpaved, there were no automobiles in the county, and Henry Ford had just begun producing his Model-Ts in Detroit. Long wooden boards were laid in the sand in front of the new bank to serve as a sidewalk.

Crane-necked locals had a field day while that bank was being built. At the same time, a well driller was trying to reach water with the town's first water well. That task was almost given up as a failure, when hardpan stopped the well driller's equipment. Townspeople would scurry from bank to well, a distance of less than a block away.

The Bank of Folkston's first officers were L. Carter as president, N. McQueen and Joseph P. Mizell, vice-presidents. L. P. Mizell was cashier, and C. S. Wainwright, the assistant cashier. This was considered quite a number of employees for a start-up bank in a town of less than 300.

The Twentieth Century had been ushered in just eight years earlier, and immigrants from the north and midwest were settling at St. George and Homeland. Folkston was frantically trying to keep up with the two Colony Companies, the 1904 Colony Company in St. George, and the 1906 Colony Company in Homeland. Friendly competition flourished.

Charlton County was not without a newspaper, Folkston lawyer, Colonel Marshall Olliff, had begun his Charlton County Herald in 1898. Now the town would have its own bank.

Nevertheless, all did go well for the Bank of Folkston. Soon Folkston businessmen began to envy the "out of town" bank. Thus began the Citizens Bank in 1912.

Local merchants began to take their money out of the Bank of Folkston and deposit it in the Citizens Bank, located at first, in the Arnold Hotel building just west of the town's railroad tracks.

The Bank of Folkston began to lose money, and its officers decided to pull out of the town, after only 5 years of operations. A receiver was named to collect its notes, and pay its debts. One of the officers, N. McQueen was named as receiver.

The Citizens Bank had no competition. The nearest other bank was miles away, and travel was either by rail or horse and wagon.

That old building, built as the Bank of Folkston, continued to serve the community well although it was no longer a bank. Upstairs was the telephone office and its 24-hour operator. Downstairs has been occupied by a number of doctors including Dr. A. D. Williams, Dr. J. W. Schneider, and others. Theodore Dinkins bought the building and operated his South Georgia Timber Company from the building. The massive concrete and steel vault remained there for most of the other tenants.

Today, Robert W. Harrison owns the building, with his offices upstairs over the adjoining building, which used to be the Topper Theater. The ground floor is occupied as a beauty salon.

Today one has to look closely to see any resemblance between that building of 1908, and the building seen today. It's underneath where the history lives of a struggling community and a struggling bank at the turn of the century.