A Small Town -- Gibson, Georgia, population 700 -- Loses a Pillar: Its Only Bank

Anthony Griswell, the Glascock County chairman, foreground, and Sheriff Dean Couch at the FirstCity Bank in Gibson, Ga., which was shut down on Friday.

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.

Bank closings have become almost familiar in Georgia. Since the beginning of 2008, nine banks have failed in the state, more than in any other state, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. But almost all the closings have been in the overbuilt Atlanta area, where the collapse of the real estate market hit particularly hard.