A. M. Minier, assistant cashier and managing officer of the First National Rank of Highland, is a native of this community and is directly connected with a family that originally established this town in Northeastern Kansas.
It was his maternal grandfather, John Bayless, who founded the Town of Highland. Mr. Bayless was a native of New York State and first came out to Kansas in 1855, when it was a frontier territory. He acquired large tracts of land in what is now Doniphan County and from that land was taken the site of the present Town of Highland, which was platted in September, 1858. Some years afterward John Bayless returned to New York State, where he died.
The First National Bank of Highland was originally the Citizens State Bank. It had operated under a national charter since April 11, 1908. Its record had been characterized by strength, conservatism of management, and a helpful influence in behalf of every legitimate enterprise in that community. The bank had excellent quarters on Main Street at the corner of Ives Street. Its capital stock is maintained at $25,000, the surplus and profits amount to $15,000, and the deposits have been steadily growing. The personnel of the officers and directors is proof of the high character of the institution. The present list of officers are: R. H. Martin, president; George S. Hovey, vice president, who is also president of the Inter State National Bank of Kansas City; B. D. Allen, cashier; A. M. Minier, assistant cashier and managing officer.
Mr. Minier was born in Highland, Kansas, December 10, 1866. His father, A. J. Minier, was born at Ithaca, New York, in 1830, grew up in that state and married, and in 1855 came as a territorial pioneer to Doniphan County, Kansas. He was here in the free state movement, saw much of the life and times of early Kansas, and during the war was a member of the State Militia and was called out during the raid of Price’s army through Missouri and Kansas. His career was that of a farmer, and in that occupation he spent his active years until his death at Highland in 1899. At one time he also served as postmaster. He was a republican and a member of the Presbyterian Church. A. J. Minier married Samantha Jane Bayless, who was born in New York State in 1834 and died at Highland, Kansas, in 1903. She was the mother of five children: Myra, who died in infancy; Frederick S., who was a farmer near Highland and died May 26, 1914, in a hospital at Kansas City; John B., who for many years was engaged in the hotel business and died in 1916, in a hospital at St. Joseph, Missouri; A. M.; and Julia, wife of D. B. Shreve, who was formerly engaged in merchandising at Axtell, Kansas, but is now living on a small farm and home near Hiawatha.
Mr. A. M. Minier attended the public schools of Highland and also took a course in Highland College, where he remained until 1885. He then took up farming and steadily worked and assisted in the management of his father’s estate until 1906. In that year he became bookkeeper in the Citizens State Bank, was soon promoted to assistant cashier, and with the incorporation of the First National Bank continued in that office and gradually assumed the important executive responsibilities which he now enjoys.
Mr. Minier had prospered as a business man and owna a fine farm of 160 acres a mile west of Highland, which his father pre-empted in territorial times. He also owned a comfortable residence on South Avenue. Mr. Minier is city treasurer of Highland, is a republican, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church.
In 1911, at Highland, he married Miss Mabel Hunter. Her father, now deceased, was for many years an active minister of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. and Mrs. Minier have three children; Mabel, born in July, 1912; Dorothy, born in June, 1915; and Abram Merton, Jr., born in December, 1916.