It is as if everyday is the last of days

Reading the January 19th Philipsburg Mail created many unsettled emotions for me. I have wandered around my home picking up and reading a lot of Montana books and Granite County history this past week trying to again accept the obvious fact that as I grow older, more and more of the history I value is being negated, altered and discarded. The book that helped me settle my feeling the best was “Montana High Wide and Handsome” by Joseph Kinsey Howard and published in 1943. 

Cited from page 327-28 “Montana will enjoy its role in all of this, next to being actually a frontier, there is nothing better than being the jumping off place for one. Ask St. Louis or Seattle, Omaha or St. Joe! Certainly frontiersmen will always be welcome, always feel at home when they hear the traditional greeting ‘get down and come on in!’ There will be room for adventurers here, In Montana everyone has a quarter of a mile (ten times as much space as the average American can claim for himself) in which to stomp about and shout, or just lie and look up at the vibrant blue-green sky. It always reaches just beyond the horizon and the horizon seems always to be still within Montana. Between the sky and the horizon edge is rainbow’s end. It is there the sun rests in intermission while the spirit dancers of the aurora thread their way silent and a-tiptoe, through the grave measures of their minuet: there too are the Sand Hills, where wander shades of dead warriors in perpetual pursuit of phantom buffalo. There is the goal of all the mysterious old trails---the green well watered pasture; the brimming reservoir; the never failing wheat. Even peace is there. The sky is so big that the newcomers’ mighty air transports roaring into the sunset will loom no larger than did the covered wagons creaking over a mountain pass. For an instant they will be noisy and important, and there will be a flick of flame on their wings, celestial tribute to gallantry; then the sky will be still again…save for the high chorus of color, which one learns ro hear after awhile. The sunset holds infinite promise. Fire sweeps up from behind the Rockies to consume the universe, kindles the whole horizon, and all the great sky is flame; then suddenly it falters and fades atop the distant peaks and the lonely buttes, ebbs and is lost in secret coulees. The Montanan is both humbled and exalted by the blazing glory filling his world, yet so quickly dead; he cannot but marvel that such a puny creature as he should be privileged to stand here unharmed, and watch. It is as if every day were the last of days. So Edward Arlington saw the mountain county: Dark hills at evening in the west, Where sunset hovers like a sound Of golden horns that sang to rest Old bones of warriors under ground, Far now from all the bannered ways Where flash the legions of the sun, You fade—as if the last of days Were fading, and all wars were done. But the sun’s fierce ecstasy will return tomorrow night. And next year.” 

Many banks failed in Montana and Granite county and especially during the depression. By 1939, the only banks were in Deer Lodge or Butte and caused great hardship for the people. Thus began a concentrated effort by merchants and ranchers to form their own bank. A four page document on legal sized paper is present in the family possessions of J.D. Kennedy, a Granite county rancher, Under-sheriff, Sheriff, State Representative and Senator, that was the original petition to establish this bank. The document dated October 26, 1939 contains the original signatures of 89 businesses, ranchers and citizens of Granite county. The names are all listed in “Mettle of Granite County Book Two” page 32. These people contributed their hard earned cash to buy shares in this institution and named it Flint Creek Valley Bank which opened in April, 1940. The major share holders became Board members and at the close of business December 31, 1940 a document shows $339,010.13 in Resources and Liabilities. Officers were: H.A. Featherman President, R.D. Metcalf Vice-president, B.G. Paige cashier and Clarice Superneau Assistant cashier. The Board of Directors were: J.D. Kennedy, H.A. Featherman, R,D. Metcalf, John Rodda and B.G. Paige. J.D. Kennedy was president of the bank for many years and until his death March 4, 1949. 

Blurring the history, around 2000 it became Granite Mountain Bank (not established in 1940 as the sign hanging over the door says). Some descendants still have their original FCV shares. This institution has now been sold to Citizen Alliance Bank. What is not written and remembered shall forever be lost. Question is: what will happen to all those shares people have held onto for decades?