Farmers & Merchants Bank of St. Clair was established in May 1913 with a capital base of $12,500.00, by a group of six men who were able to pool their resources together to open the bank. During that first year, the Bank had funded a total of 46 real estate loans. Five years later, in September of 1918, the Bank's assets had reached $145,297.93, and today our assets exceed $165 million.
Farmers & Merchants Bank had only one president from 1913 through 1965, until Mr. John W. Waller became President in 1966, and Chairman of the Board of Directors in September 1983. Upon Mr. Waller's retirement, Mr. Charles Butler was appointed President in September 1991, In March 2010, Mr. Charles Butler retired and continued as Vice Chairman, and Mr. David Hoffman was appointed President.
With the growth of the St. Clair area, and after outgrowing our main bank location, we opened our first branch office in 1984. This allowed us to add four lobby tellers and three drive-up lanes at the new Plaza office in St. Clair.
In the fall of 1998, we opened two new additional locations; one in Lonedell located in Wagner's Store at the intersection of Hwy 30 and Hwy FF, and the second one in High Ridge in the Gravois Village Plaza. Within four years we built a permanent High Ridge branch office in September 2002, at 1010 Crossroads Place, and moved into that new location and closed the old Gravois Village Plaza office. Also in September 2002, we moved our Operations/Bookkeeping Department from the Plaza office in St. Clair to 515 South Main Street Suite B across the street from the main bank location.
In September of 2006 we opened our newest branch at 619 Stockell Drive in Eureka. With all of these additions, Farmers & Merchants Bank has five bank locations to better serve our customers. As we have grown, so has our reputation for serving the needs of our communities as a bank that excels in customer service and product innovations. Our growth is evident by the expansion of the our trade area, reaching individual customers and businesses in communities surrounding St. Clair and Lonedell in Franklin County, High Ridge in Jefferson County, and Eureka in St. Louis County.
We have ATMs at all of our bank locations and three additional ATM's; one inside Wagner's Store in Lonedell, one at 895 N. Commercial, near the intersection of Highway 47 and Commercial, in St. Clair and the latest one is located inside of the Country Mart Store at 925 Plaza Drive in St. Clair. We are also a part of the new MoneyPass Network which is a surcharge free network of more than 17,000 ATMs available nationwide. MoneyPass ATM locations can be searched at www.moneypass.com for added convenience.
Farmers & Merchants Bank is a locally owned financial institution that is chartered by the State of Missouri and is also a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The Bank is served by a nine (9) member Board of Directors consisting of John Waller; Chairman, Charles Butler; Vice Chairman / Secretary, Milt Branum Jr, Jim D. Schmidt, D. Grant Waller, T. Scott Waller, F. Edward Lewis, David Hoffman and Connie Hughes.