Online Brief: Golden City set to lose only bank

by James McNary, Articles Editor

Arvest Bank has announced that the Golden City branch of Bear State Bank will be one of the branches of the latter bank to be closed following the merger of Bear State into Arvest.

This will leave the Golden City community without its own bank for the first time since 1905, at the founding of what was then the First National Bank of Golden City.

Rob Keys, an Arvest representative in Lowell, Ark., confirmed that the branch will be among those closed, with its last day of operation slated for Friday. Sept. 21, 2018.

The facility in Golden City operated as First National Bank until 2004, and had by then opened a facility in Lamar (which was later made the main branch), when it was merged with sister institution Metropolitan National Bank of Springfield. At the time, both were owned by Marshfield Investment Company. Following the death of Marshfield Investment Company's founder, Metropolitan was sold to Bear State Bank of Harrison, Ark., in 2015. Metropolitan had just moved the Golden City branch into a new facility at that time, swapping some property with the city of Golden City. The original facility now serves as Golden City's city hall.

Several other former Metropolitan branches in the Springfield area are also slated to be closed.

This is just the most recent closure of local, rural bank branches following the acquisition of a local bank by another, larger institution. The communities of Miller and Lockwood both lost branches of Great Southern Bank in 2016 following the purchase by that institution of some of the assets of Sun Security Bank. Lockwood, however, still had two other banking institutions with facilities in town. Miller was left without a bank for the first time since 1928, and the building formerly housing that branch continues to sit there, vacant.