Payette Banks
By Ron Marlow
Boomerang, renamed Payette, had been in existence less than a decade when the three-story brick bank building was constructed on the corner of eighth and main. L. G. Dyes, Jr. (president), Albert B. Moss, an implement dealer, and other local men organized the Payette Valley Bank, opened there in 1891. C. S. Loveland (Bank commissioner, 1905) was the cashier. W. O. and R. G. Butleris First Bank of Payette was also functioning in 1891, but it didn’t last very long.
Albert Moss succeeded Dyes as the president of the Payette Valley Bank. He reorganized it in 1901, and incorporated it as the Bank of Commerce. By 1904 Moss was competing with Leo Leighton’s First National Bank. His cashier was P. A. Devers who had been with Moss earlier. M. F. Albert was the cashier at the Bank of Commerce. The two banks were both housed in Payette’s original bank building. Moss consolidated with the First National Bank when the Payette National Bank was organized in 1906. Six years later, T. F. Adams and cashier M. D. Chandler opened the Fruitgrowers Bank. It was merged with the First National Bank in 1916. E. H. Murphy was the cashier at the time.
Payette’s two national banks prospered during the war years. Peter Pence headed the First National Bank and M. F. Albert was still the cashier in 1918. O. H. Avery was the president of the Payette National Bank. His cashiers were A. P. Stritchfield and C. E. Larsen. Heavy withdrawals caused the closure of Avery’s bank November 16, 1922. Farmers and fruit growers, suffering because prices for their products dropped suddenly, took their savings out of the Payette National Bank and it collapsed. In December 1923, the remaining assets, including 25 cows, 20 horses, and 15 hogs (plus auto and farm machinery) were sold at a public auction.
The First National Bank of Payette, successor to the town’s first bank (1891) was reorganized as the Payette State Bank by W. A. Coughanour, Walter Pence, and their associates in July 1925. E. H. (Pat) Murphy became the cashier of the town’s only bank. In 1930, the First Security Bank of Boise, managed by Murphy, purchased the Payette State Bank. It became a branch of the First Security Bank of Idaho in 1933, and Murphy continued for many years. The Idaho First National Bank opened its Payette branch in 1963.
© Independent Enterprise, Payette Idaho
First Printed in The Independent-Enterprise Newspaper, Payette, Idaho, Wednesday, June 13, 2001
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