David F. Crist. President of the First National Bank at McLoud, David F. Crist is a young banker whose talents and capacity for that line of business has brought him rapidly into prominence, and his friends and associates predict for him, now only a little past thirty-five years of age, a very high place in Oklahoma financial affairs.

He comes of what might be called the landed aristocracy of the Middle West. His people have been substantial farmers, and his grandfather, David Crist, at one time owned 200 acres of black prairie land where the little City of Roodhouse, Illinois, now stands. He was one of the pioneers in that section of Illinois. David F. Crist, the Oklahoma banker, was born at Roodhouse, Illinois, January 19, 1880. His father, C. J. Crist, was born in the same place in 1845, and still lives there at the age of seventy. In fact, that section of Illinois has been his home all his career, except from 1903 to 1911, years which he spent in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma. His business has been that of farmer and stock raiser. He married Eliza Jane Wales, who was born in Pennsylvania. Of their six children David F. is the youngest, and the other five are briefly mentioned as follows: Louisa, whose first husband was William F. Wyatt, who was first a school teacher and later an attorney, and who is now the wife of Frank C. Crizier, a carpenter and builder, their home being in Roswell, New Mexico; Charles H., a farmer at Churchill, Idaho; Carrie, wife of J. H. Harp, a farmer at Roodhouse, Illinois; Mary, wife of E. V. Rawlins, a physician and surgeon at Marshfield, Missouri; and Fannie, wife of F. E. Rawlins, a farmer at Roodhouse, Illinois.

David F. Crist grew up on his father’s farm near Roodhouse, spent the first nineteen years of his life in the wholesome atmosphere of an Illinois rural district. He attended the country schools and also the Roodhouse High School, and in 1900 graduated from Brown’s Business College at Jacksonville, Illinois. Mr. Crist is not only a banker but a practical farmer as well. After leaving business college he was employed on a farm near his native town for a year and then became a bookkeeper in the People’s Bank at Roodhouse. For a year and a half he was in the same employment with the Roodhouse Bank. In April, 1904, he came to McLoud, Oklahoma, and assisted in clearing up and developing his father’s farm two miles north of that town until 1907. He then entered the Shawnee National Bank, but in 1908 returned to the farm, and during 1909 he was engaged in farming for about a year in Idaho. Returning to Oklahoma in 1910, Mr. Crist soon became identified with the Canadian Valley Bank at Asher. From bookkeeper he was promoted to cashier, and from that to the office of president. Mr. Crist is still president of the Asher Bank, and on November 8, 1915, became president of the First National Bank of McLoud. His home is now in McLoud. The other officers of this bank are John W. Jones of Shawnee, vice president, and W. H. Hollis, cashier. The First National has a capital of $25,000, surplus of $5,000, and the bank building is situated on Main Street.

In politics Mr. Crist is a democrat, and is affiliated with Asher Lodge No. 238, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and is a member of the Oklahoma Banker’s Association. At Oklahoma City, in December, 1909, he married Miss Myrtle Welchon, whose father, J. W. Welchon, lives 0n his farm north of McLoud. Two children were born into their home, D. Frank, horn September 25, 1910, and Wayne Gordon, born December 6, 1912.