Bank of St. Francisville

W hen the Bank of St. Francisville first opened its doors more than 40 years ago, they were the underdog. The newly-minted operation in St. Francisville, Louisiana was operating out of a trailer and had to compete with an older, established bank for a place in the town of 1,500 people. “We didn’t feel like that bank was meeting the needs of the area, so we decided to get a National Charter,” says Conville Lemoine, Chairman of the Bank of St. Francisville Board. “But the owner of that bank was able to fight it through our U.S. senator. He kept squashing it.” Despite the hiccup, Lemoine and then-president and founder Carter Leak III pushed on, opting to become a state non-member bank. But this didn’t set the Bank of St. Francisville back. Within one year, the bank had outgrown its tiny trailer and moved into a 3,300 square-foot building in St. Francisville’s historic downtown. The bank’s handful of employees grew and grew, and soon they were bursting at the seams,