Bank of Italy building

Built in 1918, this eight-story building is renowned for its ornate terra cotta and brick. It was originally home to the Bank of Italy, the same bank that later became the Bank of America. The interior lobby reflects California's booming economy during the early 20th century. Visitors would have been awed by the grand entrance and its marble floors and staircases as well as the twenty-five-foot-tall ceiling finished with decorative plaster. The elevator doors were finished with etched brass and the stairs were made of solid mahogany. The Bank of Italy building became a National Register of Historic Places listing in 1982.

The Bank of Italy began expanding from San Francisco into other California towns in 1909 with a branch in San Jose; they were located in a dozen towns by 1917. They established a branch in Fresno by 1916 and had the massive eight-story, steel-frame building constructed from 1917 to 1918 at the corner of Tulare and I (now Fulton) streets. Excavations for the foundation began in August 1917; the nineteen-foot-deep concrete foundation's bottom three feet were within groundwater. Nearly 300 tons of steel went into the building's construction. Work wasn't complete until fall of 1918; tenants began to move into the office floors that October. The building and its bank fixtures cost a quarter of a million dollars. The ceilings of the ground floor in the banking space soared to twenty-six feet tall. A local history in 1919 deemed the building the finest edifice in Fresno, from an artistic standpoint.

The Bank of Italy acquired many smaller banks in towns across the state, including several in Fresno: the Fresno National Bank (in 1915); People's Savings Bank (1917); and First National Bank of Fresno (1919). By late 1918, the Bank of Italy was the fourth largest bank in California in terms of assets. It advertised in a Fresno newspaper that Bank of Italy savings accounts would make great Christmas gifts, with only a dollar needed to start a new account (see the image above). The bank had 33 branches in California by 1921 with assets of $157 million. O. J. Woodward served as vice-president of the Bank of Italy in 1921; assistant manager of the Fresno branch was M. S. Hays.

http://historicfresno.org/nrhp/nrhp.htm

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Vandor, Paul E. History of Fresno County California, With Biographical Sketches.... Volume 1. Los Angeles, CA. History Record Company, 1919.

Anonymous. "Bank of Italy Buys Another Bank in Fresno." Daily News Leader (San Mateo, CA) July 15th, 1919. , 1-1.

Anonymous. "Bank of Italy Cuts Interest in Fresno." Stockton Daily Independent (Stockton) January 1st, 1917. , 4-4.

Anonymous. "Bank of Italy Buys Three Additional Branches." Merced County Sun (Merced) November 16th, 1917. , 6-6.

Anonymous. "Bank of Italy Gets Control of Fresno Bank." Stockton Daily Independent (Stockton) July 16th, 1919. , 4-4.

Anonymous. "To Erect Modern Bank Building." Hanford Daily Sentinel (Hanford) April 21st, 1921. , 5-5.