The 1882 History of Pettis County describes the town of Green Ridge and identifies several businesses there, but does not mention a bank, and its biographical section does not mention any bank employees. By 1898, according to I. Mac DeMuth’s pamphlet A Feast of Cold Facts, Green Ridge had one bank, but it is not described in DeMuth’s publication.
However, one 19th century resource, the 1895 Portrait and Biographical Record of Johnson and Pettis County, while it doesn’t give information about the bank itself, does provide some information about Everett E. Durand, the cashier at the Green Ridge Bank.
Durand was born in Corning, Iowa, in 1858, the oldest son of Lucian and Louisa Whipple Durand, who had both come from the east to Iowa when they were children. Lucian Durand died in 1864, and in 1874, Louisa Durand moved her family to Sedalia, Missouri.
Everett Durand attended elementary schools in Iowa. When he was 18, he entered the Sedalia Collegiate Institute. In 1878, he entered Sedalia Seminary, which had consolidated with the Collegiate Institute. Sedalia Seminary offered four courses of college level work—a liberal arts curriculum, a commercial or business program, a graduate level music degree, and a normal or pedagogy department patterned after the program offered at the State Normal Schools.
In 1882, Durand graduated from the normal department and began to teach in Green Ridge, where he worked as both a teacher and an administrator for nine years. While there, he made many improvements in the school system. During the summers of 1888, 1889, and 1890, he worked as a contractor for the Star Route mail service, traveling throughout the U.S.
Durand married Mamie Flesher, daughter of Dr. W. H. and Catherine Flesher, in 1891. By 1895, the couple had two children, Paul and Esteline.
That same year, Durand retired from teaching and began a career at the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Green Ridge, where he quickly moved into the position of cashier. He served on the Board of Directors of the Citizens Building and Loan Association in Green Ridge. He was described as “efficient” and one who “clung to the loftiest principles of honor and uprightness.”
Like many successful businessmen of the time, Durand was active in civic and community affairs. A “true-blue Republican,” he was appointed Postmaster of Green Ridge by President Chester A. Arthur. In 1891, he began a term as city treasurer, a position he still held in 1895.
He and his wife were active in the Green Ridge Congregational Church, where he served as Treasurer and Sunday School Superintendent.
Durand was also active in fraternal orders in three communities. He was a member and former Past Grand of the International Order of Oddfellows in Green Ridge. He was a member of Prairie Queen Lodge of the Knights of Pythias in Windsor, and was Trustee and member of the Supreme Lodge of the Royal Tribe of Joseph in Sedalia.
The Portrait and Biographical Record praised Durand as a “most successful man…who turned his abilities into the channel of an honorable purpose [and] who accomplished the object of his endeavor.”
