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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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A Standard History of Starke County, Indiana
McCormick, Joseph N. - 1915

     [226-227]

           AUSTIN P. DIAL. The Farmers State Bank of Knox, of which AUSTIN
        P. DIAL was one of the organizers and is now president, is an
        institution with a successful record, and has been in existence and
        efficiently serving the community for more than twenty years. It
        was established in January, 1893, as a private bank known under the
        title of Farmers Bank. In January, 1901, the bank took out a state
        charter and was reorganized as the Farmers State Bank. The capital
        of the original institution was $10,000, but since its incorpora-
        tion under a state charter the capital has been $25,000, and it has
        a surplus of an equal amount. The total resources of the bank in
        March, 1914, at the regular statement, showed over three hundred
        and fifty thousand dollars, and at that time the bank had ap-
        proximately three hundred thousand dollars in deposits.  MR. DIAL
        has been president of the bank since it was incorporated. The first
        vice president was H. H. ELLINGSON. In 1908 he was succeeded in the
        office of vice president by J. W. LONG, a well-known lumberman of
        Knox. F. P. WHITSON, now deceased, was the first cashier and was
        succeeded by ISAAC TEMPLETON, who resigned, and now lives in the
        State of Pennsylvania, and Mr. J. W. KURTZ has held the office of
        cashier since 1906. The Farmers State Bank has paid large dividends
        to its stockholder, and since 1913 it has occupied an ideal banking
        house on Main Street in Knox. The bank has membership in both the
        State and National Association of Bankers.

           Among the men who have started life at the bottom of the ladder
        and have steadily climbed the upward rungs the president of the
        Farmers State Bank is deserving of particular honor and of all the
        prosperity which he has acquired. He has lived in Starke County for
        sixty years, and has thus been a witness of changes and develop-
        ments such as a younger man would find difficult to visualize. His
        home has been in the State of Indiana for sixty-two years, and he
        was born in Holmes County, Ohio, March 27, 1840. He comes of German
        stock, and his parents were thrifty and hard working, but always
        people in modest circumstances, and were able to give their son
        AUSTIN only a home, the usual brief training in the schools
        accorded to the boys of Ohio and Indiana prior to the Civil war,
        and thus the future banker began life entirely dependent upon his
        own energy and ambition. In 1852 he moved to Allen County, Indiana,
        with his parents, and in 1854 to Starke County. Reared in the
        country, he was a farmer by training, and had many struggles before
        he was well started on his career of success.  Many years ago the
        people of Knox knew him as a professional ox team driver, and he
        frequently drove an ox team hauling wood into Knox, and in that way
        and by various other work earned enough to supplement his meager
        income as a farmer.

           MR. DIAL in 1867 was elected county recorder of Starke county,
        and filled that office for two successive terms, for four years
        each term. In 1878 he was elected to the office of county
        treasurer, and in 1880 re-elected, serving two terms of two years
        each in that responsible place. During his long career he has held
        a number of other local offices, and has twice held office on the
        city board.  MR. DIAL is a strong democrat, has been delegate to
        different conventions, and in 1908 was an alternate elector from
        Indiana. Though best known as a banker MR. DIAL has a fine farm in
        Starke County, and it was farming that constituted the basis of his
        successful business career. He has lived in one house on South
        Main Street for more than forty years, and that is one of the
        substantial homes of the county seat.

           On December 12, 1913, MR. DIAL and wife celebrated the fiftieth
        anniversary of their marriage. They are one of the oldest couples
        in Starke County, and the fine co-operation and ideal relations
        which have always subsisted between MR. DIAL and wife have been in
        no small degree responsible for their success.  MRS. DIAL before
        her marriage was EDNA BEATTY. She was born in Grant County,
        Indiana, May 8, 1846, and was about fourteen or fifteen years of
        age when her parents moved to Starke County. She was married in
        this county at the age of seventeen, and she and MR. DIAL started
        out with hardly a dollar, and for a number of years had a hard
        struggle to support themselves and to provide for the future. To
        their marriage were born two children. One of them died unnamed,
        and the other, BEATTY, died when three years of age.

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