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With fewer than 3,000 residents, Glascock County is not big enough to have its own hospital, jail or Wal-Mart. But for more than 100 years, it had a bank — until late last Friday afternoon, when regulators arrived to shut it down.

Neighbors quickly telephoned one another to break the news. Debit cards no longer worked. At Kitchens Grocery, Don Kitchens was suddenly unable to accept food stamps.

“It wasn’t the loans at this bank,” said J. H. Usry, 74, a retired hairstylist. “But we’re part of it, and that’s brought us down, too.”

The Bank of Gibson was founded in 1905 and was owned for decades by the Griffin family. Residents remembered a time when there was no such thing as an account number, or when you could simply call “Mr. E. E.” — Erasmus Eggleston Griffin, or the son who took over for him, Erasmus Eggleston Griffin Jr., and get verbal approval for a loan.