Factoryville, Pa., is getting a new bank branch, seven months after the only branch in town was closed.
According to local news reports, Peoples State Bank in Wyalusing, Pa., said that it would open up a new branch in Factoryville in mid-November. It would be the $172 million-asset bank's first branch in Wyoming County and its first new one in more than four years.
Factoryville residents had been petitioning for a bank branch since the $531 million-asset Community Bank and Trust in Clarks Summit, Pa., announced in January that it would close its Factoryville office. Through a grassroots effort called "Let's Save Our Bank," more than 350 townspeople signed a petition vowing to switch their accounts to whatever new bank moved in.
Ironically, residents of Wyalusing formed a similar committee in 2000 after it was announced that Peoples was being sold to the $1.1 billion-asset Citizens and Northern Corp. in Wellsboro, Pa. Wyalusing residents feared that Citizens would close some branches in their town, and they ultimately succeeded in blocking the merger.
