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The first bank in Luray was called the Luray State Bank. Later another bank formed that was the Farmers State Bank. This bank merged with the Luray State Bank after the fire burned down the Clow Livery building that it was housed in. The Luray State Bank shares were bought out later by the O'Briens and became the First National Bank of Luray. It continued on until the depression when Franklin D. Roosevelt closed all banks during what is known as the banking holiday. The vice-president of that bank, John O'Leary, Sr., and two of his friends, drove to Salina and waited until a bank opened in Salina to borrow $1000. With the money they opened the Peoples State Bank using the charter from the Waldo State Bank. Since Luray was deemed too small to have a national bank, the First National Bank closed and its assets were bought by the Peoples State Bank.
The Peoples State Bank continued on until the 1980's. It was a family bank and was sold to become a branch of UMB. After the sale, all of the papers from the First National and some from the Luray State Bank, Waldo State Bank, Paradise State Bank and the Farmers State Bank were moved from the bank's basement. They had been stored in boxes for all those years.
This site will attempt to showcase a sampling of those historical bank papers that show the collective history of small towns across Kansas. These papers are being catalogued and stored with supplies purchased through the grant monies that we received in April 2006 from the Kansas Humanities Council.
Contact Charma Craven ccraven@gorhamtel.com
Luray Historical Society
A grant to catalog, store and display the bank's Historical Papers was
made possible through a grant from the Kansas Humanities Council
