Interpretation

What to convey to the visitor

1. How this early community bank was different than banks today
2. How this little bank survived the collapse of the early 1930s
3. The people who used this bank – farmers, orchardists, businessmen and businesswomen, Whites and Blacks, wealthy and struggling – made up the community

 

Current Artifacts

• Brief history
• Display of safe deposit box keys
• Early picture of bank
• Bank share certificate
• Check and deposit slip in frame
• Picture of last bank manager Lewis Wood
• Display on the Great Depression

Need

• Hands on – computer where a visitor can access a list of names of customers and click on one to find out more about that individual customer
• If you were the manager of this bank – actual situations presented, answers uncovered
• Safe Deposit Box scavenger hunt to find the treasure in one box – mathematical clues
• Find the bank cat and win a prize

History Timeline

• 1922 – Germantown Bank incorporated
  • William Waters, Andrew Baker, Augustus Selby, Norman W. Waters, Henry Clyde Pumphrey
• 1923 – 24 – building built, constructed around vault
• 1924 – Bank opens for business
  • John A. Stover first manager
• 1930s – new 3-day locking system installed on bank door
• 1958 – merge with First National Bank of Gaithersburg
• 1960 – merge with Suburban Trust Company
  • Carrie Green manager
• 1966 – Lewis Wood (Woody) ban manager
• 1972 – building survived the fire that destroyed to general store 20 feet away
• 1975 – robbery prompts the installation of bullet-proof windows for tellers, bars on windows and door
• 1976 – exterior night deposit box installed
• 1983 – bank ceased operation in this building and donated to the County
• 2001-2003 – building renovated and handicap door and restroom created
• 2003 – Germantown Historical Society leases the building from the County
• 2015 – Germantown Historical Society purchases the building from the County