History

Farmers & Merchants Bank is a family-owned, chartered institution with branch locations in eleven communities in Southeast Nebraska. The holding company, Country Bank Shares, Inc., was formed in 1989 with the purpose of consolidating some of the independent banks that the Dunlap family owned.

Country Bank Shares, Inc, got its start when M.W. Dunlap purchased the Farmers State Bank in Douglas, Nebraska in 1921. From that small bank in that small town, four of Maynard and Helen Dunlap’s sons began banking careers that have grown far beyond most people’s expectations. The eldest son, G. Alan Dunlap, worked with his father at Douglas, attended Harvard, worked at one of the large Lincoln banks and then, when the Dunlap family purchased the Farmers & Merchants Bank in Milford, took over the management of this, their first acquisition.

From that point the family continued to purchase banks including:

• Bank of Palmyra in 1956
• Home State Bank of Beaver Crossing in 1959
• Cooperative Bank of Cordova in 1984
• Bank of Panama (purchased as a branch of Farmers State Bank, Douglas) in 1985
• Nebraska State Bank of Weeping Water in 1990
• State Bank of Firth in 1992
• Bank of Wilber in 1995
• Security National Bank of Superior in 1998 with offices also in Lawrence and Jansen, Nebraska
• Kearney State Bank and Trust in 2007

Farmers & Merchants Bank takes pride in being large enough to offer a wide variety of services and products, but being small enough to serve our smaller, rural communities in southeast Nebraska. We offer friendly, personal service in your communities.