Pictorial and Genealogical Record
of Greene County, Missouri • 1893

Together with Bibliographies of Prominent Men of Other Portions of the State, Both Living and Dead


J. F. G. BENTLEY. The American bank is the synonym of dignity, respectability and safety; the medium of exchange between cities and foreign countries, and the great sustainer of the various business enterprises of the country. The bank is the teacher of method and system, and is a check upon reckless and indiscriminate speculation, the spirit of which is too prevalent in the country. Although established in September, 1882, the Bank of Springfield, of which Mr. J. F. G. Bentley is president, it must be admitted, is one of the most notable banking houses in Springfield, Mo., and the gentlemen who constitute its officers have long been known in the financial and commercial world. The capital stock of the concern at the time of its establishment was $100,000, and its first officers were C. W. Rogers, president; F. E. Atwood, cashier. The present officers are J. F. G. Bentley, president, J. A. Sloughton, vice-president, and J. W. Hall, cashier. The bank is located in a handsome building at the corner of Commercial and _____ Streets, and has built up a large and reliable business. It has ever pursued a safe policy, has conducted its operations in an entirely reliable manner and the methods by which it has been conducted have been steadily improved. Its deposits at the present time amount to $290,000. The reputation of this establishment is such that a treatise upon the representative business concerns of Springfield would be somewhat akin to a fiasco if it failed to take cognizance of the Bank of Springfield. There is undoubtedly no one department of enterprise which has been so powerfully instrumental in the development of the city's prosperity as the business of the banker, and it is in the hands of such gentlemen as form the officers and directory in the Bank of Springfield that the calling under discussion becomes one of the most important levers for good in the commercial machinery of the country. Mr. Bentley, the president, is a native of Ohio, and came to the State of Missouri in 1869, locating at Ash Grove, where he followed the calling of a merchant for many years. About 1882 he came to Springfield, and while following the calling of a merchant operated on different lines until he became interested in the Bank of Springfield, since which time his attention has been given principally to this line of work. He has made a very wide acquaintance here among the most prominent business men, and this fact has largely contributed toward the success of the institution with which he is connected. Mr. Bentley is treasurer of the Metropolitan Street Railway of this city, which office he has hold since the organization of the company; is a director in the National Loan and Investment Association of Springfield, which has a capital stock of $5,000,000, and the bank with which he is connected has correspondence with the National Bank of Commerce of New York City, the National Bank of St. Louis and the National Bank of Commerce of Kansas City, Mo. Mr. Bentley and his family have a pleasant and comfortable home at the corner of Washington Avenue and Calhoun Street, his residence being considered the handsomest in southwest Missouri. In him is the stuff of which noble and useful citizens are made, and that he is one is attested by the fact that he has numerous warm personal friends, who repose in him the utmost confidence.

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