Orville L. Cully, cashier of the Saxman State Bank, is a banker of thorough training and long experience, having entered the banking institution immediately after he left school.
Mr. Cully was born in Sedgwick County, Kansas, February 20, 1882. In the paternal line he is of Scotch ancestry, his great-grandfather having come from Scotland and established a family in Indiana in pioneer times. Mr. Cully’s father was Henry Cully, who was born in Union County, Indiana, in 1858. He grew up and married in his native County, was a farm boy, and in 1874 came to Kansas and located in Sedgwick County. There he identified himself with the range stock industry and fed and grazed his cattle over the district south of Wichita. In 1903 he engaged in the banking business in Southern Kansas, and in the spring of 1907 he and his son Orville organized the Citizens State Bank of Claflin. He was its president, while Orville was cashier. In 1911 he bought the Farmers State Bank at Larned, and continued as president of this institution until his death. He controlled both these banks and also the First State Bank of Millikin, Colorado. Henry Cully died at Larned in 1912. He was a democrat in politics and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His wife, Alice Stevens, who was born in Union County, Indiana, in 1854, is now living at Greeley, Colorado.
Orville L. Cully, only child of his parents, was educated in the public schools of Kiowa, Kansas, finished the junior year of the Alma Normal School at Alma, Kansas, and also had a course in the Salina Business College. Leaving school in 1901, at the age of nineteen, he became bookkeeper in the Commercial State Bank, now the First National Bank of Kiowa. He was with that institution three years, and in 1907 became cashier of the Citizens State Bank at Claflin, of which his father was president. Then, in the spring of 1911, he transferred his active connections as cashier to the Larned Bank and after his father’s death sold out the family interest in these two institutions and with his mother acquired the sole ownership of the Millikin Bank in Colorado. He and his mother were jointly vice president of that institution for four years. In 1916 he sold his interest there and in January, 1917, bought an interest in the Saxman State Bank, of which he is now cashier. This bank was established at Saxman in 1908 by John Oden. Its officers today are John Oden, president; J. H. Welty, vice president; and O. L. Cully, cashier. The bank had a capital of $10,000, surplus of equal amount, and deposits of $110,000. It is the leading bank in that part of Rice County.
Besides his home in Saxman Mr. Cully owned a farm of 160 acres in Colorado, also a business building in Millikin and a half interest in another structure there, besides a good home.
While living in Millikin he served as mayor of the town and at Claflin was on the town board. Politically he is a democrat. In 1911, at Lyons, Kansas, Mr. Cully married Miss Pearl Peckinpaugh, daughter of I. J. and Susan (Steven) Peckinpaugh. Her parents live north of Saxman on their farm. Mr. and Mrs. Cully have one child, Clarence Henry, born April 26, 1915.
