L. E. Mumford Banking Company

L. E. Mumford Banking Company. . , The building now occupied by the Historical Museum of West Point was originally the L. E. Mumford Bank. A Mumford Bank branch was originally located in West Point in 1901 in the old Masonic Lodge building which was on the corner of 5th and Main Street., Following the great fire of 1903 which destroyed the downtown business district, Mumford built this brick building. A feature of the old bank, the bank vault, still exists and houses some of the museum's displays., The Mumford Bank was founded by an out-of-town entrepreneur, Lemuel Edward Mumford, from Cape Charles on Virginia's Eastern Shore in 1895. Mumford was born in 1855 in Berlin, Maryland, and moved to Cape Charles later in life. Mumford ran a successful dry goods business which he sold and began a career in banking. Other Mumford Bank branches included those in Gloucester, Mathews, Tappahannock, Irvington, Urbanna, and Kilmarnock. , A local group bought out the West Point bank branch in 1910 and renamed it the Citizens Exchange Bank. Then in the midst of the Great Depression in 1933, the bank merged into Farmers and Mechanics Bank., The bank building has since been the site of many businesses with an apartment upstairs before being acquired by the Historical Society of West Point in August of 2015. The former apartment upstairs is now additional museum display space and a historical books library., (cpations) , Mumford Bank Building in middle of block of Main Street circa 1905-10. , Mumford Building , Mumford building on left. View from South - (note dirt Main Street)