By Stephen Smoot
On Main Street in Franklin rests the solid and sturdy façade of Pendleton Community Bank
A century and a few days ago, Farmers and Merchants Bank of Marlinton opened its doors to serve that timber town.
Now, headquartered in Franklin, that same deep-rooted institution serves eight communities in West Virginia (including its original Marlinton home base) and six in Virginia. Over time, as it has evolved and expanded, Pendleton Community Bank has always put a premium on its relationships with the local people and the surrounding area.
Marlinton’s boosters had convinced the Pocahontas County electorate to move the county seat from Huntersville in 1891 as rail and timber interests pushed aside the traditional agricultural economy. After the arrival of the first train on the Greenbrier Division of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, the town grew rapidly in terms of both business and population.
Railroads snaked through the wilderness to haul out the prime timber from virgin forests, shipping the bounty to mills that would cut board or reduce the wood to paper. That which did not get cut into board by local saw mills went to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company’s mill in Covington, Virginia.
Marlinton, which was a sleepy river town in 1891, by 1920 boasted 1,880 of the county’s 15,581 inhabitants. Into this boom town was born the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Marlinton, now known as Pendleton Community Bank.
For 12 years, the institution served Marlinton but the economy of the region followed that of the nation itself after the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.
One of those factors had nothing to do with the global economic crisis so much as reckless timber extraction. Since 1870, timber companies followed frontiersmen’s practice in creating farmland, but on a much wider scale. They simply clear cut the land from the most aged to the newest of trees and planted nothing to help rejuvenate the forests.
As the William McNeel contributed to the Pocahontas Times in 1978, then was reprinted in 2019. “Then, almost overnight, it was over. By the late 1920s virtually the entire county had been cut over. There was no more timber to be had. “The boom had run its course and the lumbermen went elsewhere to find a new source of timber.”
One of those areas lay directly to the north. While timber industry deforestation hit parts of Pendleton County, West Virginia History online’s archives contain a photograph taken between 1930 and 1940 showing “Harper House on Upper North Fork.” The foreground shows a period farm, but the mountainsides in the distance show ample reserves of timber. Small scale portable timber mills thrived in the area. Many farmers split time between their fields and timbering, using what they needed and selling the rest.
Timbering added to the traditional county economic bedrock of agriculture, both the raising of crops and of cattle. Into the 1930s, the modern highways hosted old fashioned cattle drives back and forth across the ridges and state lines.
As the nation struggled economically, international trends hit the United States banking system. In the year 1930, many expected the economy to rebound from the shock of the crash of the New York Stock Exchange the previous year.
About two-thirds of American banks participated in the Federal Reserve Bank system that provided loans at the prime interest rate for banks having cash flow or other financial problems, but 8,000 did not.
Without those protections, if depositors got skittish and wished to remove their money entirely, the bank would fail because no such institutions keep 100 percent of their financial assets on hand in cash. Once the cash runs out in what were called “runs on the bank” or a “bank panic,” the bank closes its doors and oftentimes in those days, it never reopened.
The bank panic of 1930 weakened Franklin’s three banks and one which hit in the subsequent year finished all off. This left the town and county without a financial institution convenient to the residents, causing an economic hardship to the community.
Many residents resorted to barter to obtain goods they needed. As Idelta Lambert of Circleville remembers, stores on the North Fork would accept eggs from residents in exchange for the same value in other groceries. The farm where Cool Hollow Maple now operates in Sugar Grove produced maple sugar for their own use and also trade until refined sugar started to appear in stores.
During the 1930s, Pocahontas County’s population dipped by about 2,000 while Pendleton lost less than 272. This relative stability plus the lack of any competition likely helped the Franklin contingent that successfully convinced the Farmers and Merchants Bank to open a new chapter of life as Pendleton County, later Community, Bank in Franklin.
PCB has served as a vital block in the county’s economic foundation ever since. Part of serving in that role has required the bank to both evolve and expand to meet challenges and take advantage of opportunities.
That means that as the bank stares confidently forward into the future, it never forgets its origins and traditions.
Jonah Spence, a Virginia branch executive for PCB, shared on a 2024 podcast that “agriculture is in our roots and remains a big part of what we do at PCB.” The institution’s website states “since 1925, PCB has been your agribusiness partner” and offers a suite of agriculture specific financial services and products. It also remains active in supporting agriculture organizations, for example purchasing at the Future Farmers of America eggs ham and bacon sales. Approximately 60 percent of the bank’s business is commercial with a substantial part of that in support and service of agriculture.
Over time, PCB has expanded west into Beckley and east into the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, giving it a broadly diverse range of customers. While many enjoy the convenience of modern online banking products and apps, a number of other customers either prefer face to face interaction or even live in areas where they cannot access the internet due to federal regulations governing their local area and no land-based access.
“If somebody needs to talk to you in person,” explained Spence, “you have got to be readily available” whether they come in person or need assistance over the phone. He added that “I think that sets us apart as a community bank.”
“We take pride in the fact that if you call our office, you’re going to be able to speak to someone on the line. We want to make sure our customers are taken care of in the ways that they need to communicate,” he elaborated.
This approach dovetails with the personal philosophy of 22-year bank president Bill Loving. He explained in a 2022 interview that “our vision has not changed from its founding in 1925. We are still people-centered and community-driven, supporting the needs of the community any way we can.”
He went on to state that “after I joined the institution, we developed our mission statement that has not changed appreciably in 22 years.”
Loving’s role has helped to elevate the voice of Pendleton County to the national stage.
The bank continues to earn awards and accolades. Loving shared in the interview that PCB had earned an award in agricultural lending. Even more impressive, Independent Banker rated PCB 11th in the nation in its lender score for institutions with between $300 million and $1 billion in assets.
This category places PCB in the category of a community bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation says of these banks that they “focus on providing traditional banking services in their local communities. They obtain most of their core deposits locally and make many of their loans to local businesses.”
It adds that “they have specialized knowledge of their local community and their customers. Because of this expertise, community banks tend to base credit decisions on local knowledge and nonstandard data obtained through long-term relationships and are less likely to rely on the models-based underwriting used by larger banks.”
During the years, community banks face the structural problem of competing against larger institutions with more capital and brand recognition. They also have to endure regulations imposed at the federal level by those with limited knowledge for or appreciation of the role of community banks.
Loving has served in leadership roles with national community banking organizations. Through the years, he has worked with the offices of federal elected officials, such as Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito, and Alex Mooney, former congressman and member of the house banking committee, as well as Carol Miller and Riley Moore, current representatives.
In this fashion, the problems encountered in trying to provide proper service to a market like Pendleton County in a tighter regulatory environment got directly communicated to those who needed to hear that information.
With a proud past and confidence in the future, PCB celebrated its centenary in style Saturday. Kids could enjoy activities from bouncy houses for the little ones to axe throwing for the older. Two acts, Cameron Simmons and Spencer Wagner, provided four hours of entertaining tunes.
Other attractions included a drive-in car show and a free kids’ movie at the Warner’s Drive-In.
Countless turned out for a wonderful time on a gorgeous day.
