Snapshots of History

By Editor | November 12, 2025 |

I took this week’s photo on May 18, 2016 on Decatur Street in Kellerton. There were many two-story, brick bank buildings in Ringgold County at one time. This is the last one still standing. And I found the two men most responsible for its existence.
Willis Wilbur Peasley was born in Essex County, New York in 1853. In June 1875 he graduated from the university law department in Iowa City. Peasley located to Davis City in 1876 to practice law and married into a good family in 1879. Kellerton got the railroad in 1879. Peasley moved his family there in 1884 and promptly opened Kellerton’s first bank. The location of that first bank is unknown to me.
In 1893, Peasley would finance the bank building we know today.
The other man in our equation is B. F. (Fred) Shipley. I only found a little information about Shipley as he appears to have showed up 1893 and was gone by 1894. He and his wife made several visits to Grant City, Mo., so one of them was from there.
Shipley was the manager of the brick yard in Benton in early 1893. Shipley and Mac Parr made a business trip to Kellerton and soon after that Shipley and W. W. Peasley were in St. Joseph, Mo. ordering pressed brick. It was common for brick layers and building owners to use high quality brick on the facade of a building and locally burned brick for the foundation and interior. My guess is locally burned brick was inconsistent in color and texture, thus the purchase of high quality pressed brick.
It was Fred Shipley who started the first brick yard in Kellerton in May 1893. I don’t know how the kilns were built, but thousands of brick at a time could be burned. This brick yard would later be owned by W. W. Peasley and would produce tile, as well. The brick and tile factory burned in 1905.
So, Shipley was not only the brick maker, he was the bricklayer, too.
The foundation was done by early June 1893 and by then Shipley had burned some bricks. Shipley had brought a couple of helpers from Benton, Mr. Sherrill and Mr. Keith. I’m pretty sure Keith was Fred Keith who had worked for William Ferguson, a well-known contractor at Benton. Sherrill was from the family that owned the Benton Hotel at this time.
The weather appears to have been favorable and work progressed until September when the interior work could be started. The carpenters got busy and a beautiful counter was installed in October.
In December 1893, a cement walk was placed between the new bank building and the new brick (also done by Shipley) store building of A. H. Teale. The same month, W. W. Peasley opened for business in his new, two-story brick building which measures 25 feet by 50 feet.
W. W. Peasley died in 1908. His obituary says he gave up his law license when he started the Kellerton Bank in 1884. When he retired from the bank business he got involved in the lumber, brick, and tile business. He and his wife had nine children with four of them dying in infancy. I lost track of Shipley, but those are two main guys responsible for the bank building at Decatur and Fifth Streets in Kellerton. It has been standing for 132 years. The Kellerton Globe newspaper office was once housed in the upstairs.
The Kellerton Bank reorganized in 1905 and became the Kellerton State Bank. The stock market crash of 1929 spelled disaster for banks and the Kellerton State Bank was sold to the Mount Ayr State Bank in March 1931.
The old bank building served as an apartment complex for many years but has been vacant for about the last six years. It has recently been painted so maybe a restoration project is underway. I will be watching – as always.