Couple Comes Across Historical Surprises In The Bank They Purchased

The new owners of the now closed Meltons Bank along the Dekalb/Cannon County line found a surprise in their loft.

Co-Owner Jama Hancock said they purchased the band in 2018. Her husband recently found a notable assortment of old documents, including ledger sheets that show the day-to-day operations of the bank that never had a computer.

“It never had account numbers and for years they had no routing numbers for the accounts,” Hancock said. “Because the people when they ran it, they knew everyone that walked in the door by name, they didn’t have to have a number for them.”

Hancock said she also found letters written by the bank on behalf of the customers intended to help settle civil disputes. Hancock said the discovery helped verify that customers were more than just income to the bank operators.

“It is just such personal, personal items that let us know what we already knew, but to verify that it was just a one-on-one operation,” Hancock said. “When you walked in the door you were somebody, you weren’t just a number.”

Hancock said that the paperwork is a testament to how self efficient little communities like Gassaway were before the automobile.

“People got to where they were traveling out more, that was one of the reasons small communities like this died out,” Hancock said. “Because they wanted to go further.”

Hancock said that she and her husband have added the Melton’s bank to the national historic register. Hancock said they are currently contemplating what they want to do with the documents, including preserving the documents for historical record.