A century of dollars and cents for bank

GUNNISON — If you're cruising through central Utah today and your midday is free, anytime between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., you might want to stop by the Gunnison Valley Bank and load up on the free shirts, toys and Subway sandwiches they're giving away.

It isn't every day a bank hands out free stuff.

But this isn't every day.

Today is the day the Gunnison Valley Bank turns 100.

On Oct. 23, 1909, the bank opened its doors for the very first time.

Ever since, not a legal business day has dawned that it hasn't opened for business.

There were several uneasy weeks in the spring of 1933 when the doors were locked tight. But the same was true for every other bank in America, by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who declared a national bank holiday in an attempt to restore stability at the nadir of the Great Depression.

But as soon as the forced closure was rescinded, Gunnison Valley Bank was one of the first to reopen.

"A national publication called 'Nation's Digest' praised the bank for its fine condition and for opening so soon," said Steve Buchanan, Gunnison Valley Bank's vice president.

Buchanan has been with the bank for the past 36 years and knows its history as well as anyone. He started as a teller in 1972 after graduating in finance from BYU and hasn't left since.

A Gunnison native whose resume includes eight years as the town's mayor and 26 years on the City Council, Buchanan has seen plenty of people, places and enterprises come and go in the valley. But the bank has remained as constant as milking time in the early morning.

The building that houses the bank at 10 S. Main is the same brick, stone and concrete structure that was declared "absolutely fireproof" when it was brand-spanking new in 1909, although expansions and drive-through lanes have since been added.

And there have been no sequels.

"Most banks branch out to grow. We've just stayed here and taken care of the people we see every day," said Buchanan.

Meanwhile, community banks in nearby Manti, Ephraim and Richfield have gone out of business, victimized either by their own overreaching (or under-reaching) or by competition from the big city banks.

Just why GVB has lasted and these others haven't, Buchanan isn't eager to speculate about — he is a banker, after all.

But the machine that sits to the left of his banker's desk might tell part of the story.

It is a typewriter, an IBM Selectric, circa 1972, and it is not there because Buchanan is slow at remodeling or because he considers it an antique.

He uses it.