The Farmers and Merchants Bank is a family owned, chartered institution with branch locations in ten communities in Southeast Nebraska, and ninety-five employees. Country Bank Shares, Inc., the holding company, was formed in 1989 with the purpose of consolidating some of the independent banks that the Dunlap family owned.
Country Bank Shares, Inc., got its start when M.W. Dunlap purchased the Farmers State Bank in Douglas, NE, in 1921. From that small bank in that small town, four of Maynard and Helen Dunlap’s sons began banking careers that have grown far beyond most people’s expectations. The eldest son, G. Alan Dunlap, worked with his father at Douglas, attended Harvard, worked at one of the large Lincoln banks and then, when the Dunlap family purchased the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Milford, took over the management of this, their first acquisition.
