James Hugh McBirney (1870-1944) was born in County Tipperary, Ireland and emigrated to the United States with his family when he was about five years old. The family settled in southern Kansas, where his father, Hugh McBirney, served as a Methodist minister. James grew up in Kansas and moved to Oklahoma Territory in time to participate in an 1883 land run, but failed to win the plot of his choice. Armed with only a public school education, he entered the banking business. In 1897, he was offered a job in the newly organized Bank of Tulsa, rising to the position of Vice President. He organized his own Bank of Commerce in Tulsa in 1904, which he renamed in 1911 as the National Bank of Commerce.