In 1900, the Maryland General Assembly chartered Farmers Banking and Trust Company.  The bank opened in a small rented room in Rockville with capital stock of $50,000.   The directors purchased a lot on the corner of Court Street and Commerce Lane and hired architect Thomas C. Groomes to design a new bank.   While the new building was under construction, each afternoon the officers carried cash in a tin box to the nearby Montgomery County National Bank of Rockville (founded in 1884) for safekeeping. 

The first president of Farmers Bank was William Veirs Bouic, Jr., a Rockville attorney who represented the B&O Railroad, helped to incorporate the Maryland State Bar Association, served on the boards of the Rockville Cemetery Association and the Rockville Lyceum, and was Rockville’s first mayor under the new charter in 1888.  Other early directors included future mayor Lee Offutt and proprietor William Wallace Welsh.  They were paid $2 for each board meeting.   In 1908, a branch opened in Kensington.

Bankers were important personages in the small County seat.  Not only did they provide the capital  businesses, residents, and industry needed to build, expand, and make purchases, but they also assisted local government with public projects and fiscal management.  Bankers often provided leadership in the community, as when Farmers’ president Robert G. Hilton headed a committee to encourage Liberty Bond sales in WW I.  The town of Rockville supported both local financial institutions, alternating its account yearly between Montgomery County National and Farmers banks.

Plans for the new County Courthouse in 1930 forced demolition of buildings in the block bounded by Court, Washington, and Jefferson Streets and Montgomery Avenue. Farmers relocated across the main street from the new courthouse to a modern bank that cost $160,000. The directors engaged Tilghman Moyer Company of Allentown, PA to design the building in the popular Art Deco style. The bank’s exterior, interior, and entry abound with carved reliefs of Deco motifs – eagles, radiating lines, half-circles and zig-zags. Original Farmers Bank signs remain under the M&T exterior signs and on the vault door. Interior light fixtures, clock, doors, and ceiling panels keep the feel of the 1930 lobby.

Farmers Bank survived the Depression and continued operating for many years under the stewardship of Richard F. Green.  A branch opened in Twinbrook in 1958.  The bank name became First National, AlIfirst, and now M&T Bank.  Fortunately, Rockville’s only remaining Art Deco building was one of the “conservation buildings” that eluded urban renewal in the 1960s.  The bank was listed in the prestigious National Register of Historic Places as part of the Montgomery County Courthouses Historic District in 1986.