For more than forty years has this honored and influential citizen maintained his home in Fort Smith and he is to be regarded as one of the pioneer business men of this city, to the development and upbuilding of which he has contributed in generous measure, the while his name has stood exemplar of utmost civic loyalty and the most inflexible personal integrity, so that he has naturally maintained secure place in the confidence and esteem of the community that has so long remained his home. He has been connected with the First National Bank of Fort Smith from the time of its organization, as successor to the National Bank of Western Arkansas, of which he was one of the organizers. He has thus been actively identified with banking interests in Fort Smith for nearly two score years and has been a potent factor in the upbuilding of one of the great financial institutions of the southwest.

Mr. Vaile claims the staunch old Hoosier state as the place of his nativity and is a scion of one of its sterling pioneer families. He was born at Richmond, the judicial center of Wayne county, Indiana, on the 19th of September, 1847, and is a son of Dr. Joel and P. M. (Harrington) Waile, both of whom continued to reside in Indiana until their death, secure in the high regard of all who knew them. The father was long numbered among the representative physicians and surgeons of Wayne county and he and four of his sons rendered loyal service in behalf of the Union during the climacteric period of the Civil war. Dr. Waile went into service as surgeon of the Second Indiana Volunteer Cavalry and later became surgeon in charge of all federal hospitals in and about Nashville, Tennessee. In this same regiment John Waile, of this review, enlisted as a private, and he continued in the ranks of the boys in blue until 1865, when he received his honorable discharge. He participated in the battles of Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Franklin, as well as in various other engagements in Tennessee, and he proved a good soldier, though he was scarcely more than a boy at the time of his enlistment. John Waile is indebted to the common schools of his native county for his early educational discipline and was afforded the further advantages of a home of refinement and other gracious influences. After the close of the war he remained at the parental home until 1866, when he made his way to Independence, Missouri, where he continued to reside until 1867, when he came to Arkansas and cast in his lot with the citizens of Fort Smith, which was then a small town. Here he has maintained his home during the long intervening years and here he has been actively and prominently identified with business enterprises of marked importance. In February, 1872, he became one of the organizers of the National Bank of Western Arkansas, and he has been an officer of the institution continuously from that time to the present, the reorganization, under the present title of the First National Bank of Fort Smith having been effected January 1, 1888. He is now the only officer that was connected with the original institution at the time of its incorporation, being at the present time a member of the board of directors. He was cashier of the bank for twenty-three consecutive years, having assumed this office in 1882 and having continued incumbent of the same until 1905, when he tendered his resignation. He has long held a high reputation as an able financier and it is in large measure due to his effective executive policy that the First National Bank of Fort Smith has become one of the most substantial and popular financial institutions of the state and of the entire southwest. In September, 1872, the deposits of the original bank were but slightly in excess of $22,000, and the growth of the business needs no further voucher than that given in the statement that its deposits at the present time (1911) are in excess of $2,500,000, operations being based on a capital stock of $200,000. Since January, 1910, the bank has occupied offices on the ground floor of its own fine building, an eight-story office building of the most modern design, construction and appointments and one that is the finest in the city—a source of pride to all classes of citizens. Mr. Waile is also treasurer of the Kelley Trust Company, of which Harry E. Kelley is president. These two gentlemen have been associated in business for a number of years, especially in connection with the development of the natural-gas resources of Sebastian county, of which Fort Smith is the judicial center and metropolis. Mr. Vaile has given his influence and co-operation in forwarding measures and enterprises projected for the general good of the community, and through his well directed energies he has not only gained for himself a substantial fortune but has also aided in the upbuilding of a thriving industrial and commercial city in the state of his adoption. He has completed the circle of York Rite Masonry and has taken much interest in the various bodies with which he is identified, including the Fort Smith commandery of Knights Templar. For many years also he was a valued representative in the Arkansas grand lodge of Free & Accepted Masons. Politically he is a Republican.

At Fort Smith, in the year 1880, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Waile to Miss Margaret Walton, daughter of Joseph J. Walton, who was a member of the old Fort Smith Rifles at the inception of the Civil war and who, with the same, entered the Confederate service, in which he sacrificed his life, as he was killed in the battle of Oak Hill, also designated as the battle of Wilson's Creek. Mr. and Mrs. Vaile have four children—Walton, John W., Miss Sara, and Margaret, the last named being now the wife of Elsworth P. Scales, of Nashville, Tennessee.