A Bank Like The Bailey Bros. Building and Loan

NYT (h/t naked capitalism):

With obvious exceptions, business at the Bank of Cattaraugus hasn’t changed much since 1882, when 20 prominent residents — among them a Civil War surgeon and a cousin of Davy Crockett — established the bank to safeguard townsfolk’s money and to finance local commerce.
In its 130-year history, the bank has rarely booked a profit for itself in excess of $50,000. Last year, Mr. Cullen said, it made $5,000. He and his officers are industry anomalies: bankers who avoid high-risk and high-growth tactics in order to reinvest in their community’s economy.
“My examiners always ask me, ‘When are you going to grow?’ ” said Mr. Cullen, a Cattaraugus native who is 64 and has the prosperous stoutness of a storybook banker. “But where is it written I have to grow? We take care of our customers. The truth is we probably couldn’t grow too much in a town like this.”
While it faces many of the same regulations that govern larger banks, it operates according to an antiquated theory of the business: that a bank should be a utility, like the power company, and serve as a broker between savers and borrowers in its community.
Cattaraugus, nestled in the woods of the misleadingly named Rich Valley, is a town of limited prospects. (“We’re not on the way to anywhere,” Mr. Cullen said.) Manufacturing, which once thrived here, has more or less died — except for the Setterstix factory on South Main Street, which produces paper lollipop handles. The largest employer in the village is the school district, and many village residents survive, like Ms. Bonner, on pensions or government subsidies, in homes that have an average mortgage of $30,000.

It's nice to hear that some of those institutions still exist.