Rimmed by steep ridges and mountain shanties, the hamlet of Keystone, W. Va. (pop. 627), looks like a movie set left over from Coal Miner's Daughter. Main Street, all four blocks of it, has not a single traffic light. Yet the local bank in recent years has boasted one of the highest profit margins in the U.S., and reached $1 billion in assets in 1998. You might wonder how such a bank could thrive in one of the poorest counties in the U.S. And you'd be in good company, because bank examiners and the FBI wondered too.
On Oct. 15, federal...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
