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Deeds in a cardboard box
The smallest bank
Kentland Federal Savings & Loan was established in 1920, survived the Great Depression, and more than a hundred years later still does all of its business in person, on paper. There are no fees and no ATMs. A savings account opens with a single $5 bill.
Three banks in town
The bank isn't even the only one in town, which sits on U.S. Highway 24 surrounded by miles of cornfields. Kentland has one McDonald's, one bar, and one gym, but it has three banks, plus a drive-up ATM.
Other tiny towns
Other tiny places do the same. Oakwood, Texas, population 400, has a bank, and Elmore City, Oklahoma, with 600 people, has two. In Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, home to 537 people, the Bank of Bird-in-Hand serves its Amish customers with a fleet of buses and horse-drawn buggy-friendly parking. It now holds $1.8 billion in assets.
Why were savings and loans first created?
The first American building society, the Oxford Provident Building Association, started near Philadelphia in 1831, modeled on British building societies. Members paid monthly dues into a shared pool, and the pool lent each member money in turn to build a house. Once every member had a home, the society dissolved. Later associations stayed open permanently and took in deposits from the public, which is the form that became the savings and loan.
Why do Amish towns need buggy parking?
Old Order Amish communities travel by horse-drawn buggy instead of by car, so businesses that serve them often provide hitching rails or sheds. The Amish began arriving in Pennsylvania from Switzerland and the Rhineland during the 1700s, and Lancaster County became a center of settlement. Bird-in-Hand sits in Lancaster County and takes its name from an eighteenth-century inn.
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