Celebrating a Century of Family Banking: The Butcher/Fairbank Family First National Bank in Cimarron (Formerly Known as Gray County State Bank) In 1904, a man by the name of Detroit Francisco and his son, San Francisco, started the Gray County State Bank with $10,000 in cash. Sixteen years later, the bank offered a job to a young farmer by the name of Ruel V. (R.V.) Butcher, and he started there on Jan. 1, 1920, with an annual salary of $1,200. R.V. had arrived in Gray County, Kansas, 19 years earlier with his parents on a train from West Virginia, homesteading on a ranch east of Cimarron, Kansas. He started out sweeping sidewalks and helping anywhere else he was needed, and he quickly began to work his way up at the bank. By April of that year, he was elected Assistant Cashier, and the Butcher legacy was born. In late 1924, a deal was closed that gave R.V. a substantial interest in the bank, and he was subsequently promoted to Cashier and Bank Director. In 1929, R.V. insisted the safest and most secure way for the bank to move forward was to nationalize, and in May of 1929, the bank increased its capital to $25,000 and converted to the National Banking System with the new title of First National Bank. Simultaneously, the bank became a family operation for the Butchers with R.V.’s father, J.D. Butcher, and father-in-law, W.H. Niemeir, also becoming Directors. His sister’s husband, E.V. Bryan, also joined the bank a few years later. The stock market crash of 1929 followed shortly thereafter and sent not only the banking industry, but the entire world into a depression. While being interviewed years later for an article in the local paper (The Jacksonian, June 24, 1970), R.V. recounted the tough times — like 1930, when crops were good, but farmers could only get “two bits a bushel” for their wheat. Or when President Roosevelt declared a banking holiday in 1933, closing all banks. “After a week-long holiday, only three of the previous seven banks in Gray County reopened. The First National Bank of Cimarron was one of them, but, like all banks, with strict government controls … the bank received a wire every morning telling them just exactly what they could and couldn’t do. Usually, a telegram said for the bank not to pay out over $50 to any one customer!” The push to increase capital and nationalize saved the bank. Banking became even more difficult in the 1930s with the advent of the terrible dust storms that made it difficult for farmers to raise even rough feed, let alone crops. Through perseverance, the First National Bank in Cimarron survived and flourished. R.V. was named President in 1950 and worked at the bank for a total of 52 years until his sudden passing in 1972 while Chairman of the Board. His wife, Willa Butcher, then began serving as a Director. Prior to his death, R.V. received 50-year pins from the Kansas Bankers Association, Masonic Lodge, Eastern Star, Royal Arch Masons and Farm Bureau. R.V. Butcher Trenton Fairbank’s great-grandfather, R.V. Butcher, at the teller line with Gray County State Bank in 1927 (before it changed its charter to First National Bank in 1929). 15
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