Do you recognize anything in these early photos of La Jolla’s first banks?
La Jolla’s prosperous development beginning in the 1890s led to the appearance of its first banks in the 1900s.
First in The Village: the Southern Trust & Savings Bank, planted on the southwest corner of Prospect Street and Girard Avenue in July 1907 along with barely-there palm trees just starting to take root.
The La Jolla branch of Southern Trust & Savings was its second; the institution’s main office was located in the US Grant Hotel in Downtown San Diego.
The La Jolla bank’s name changed to Southern Trust & Commerce Bank in 1917, was remodeled in 1926 and sold to the Bank of Italy in 1927, according to “La Jolla Year by Year” by Howard Randolph.
Bank of Italy became Bank of America in 1930; the current La Jolla location of Bank of America sits at Girard and Silverado Street.
Blocks away on Wall Street and Girard Avenue, The United States National Bank of San Diego “opened its doors on May 31, 1924,” Randolph wrote.
The United States National Bank of San Diego eventually became the First National Trust & Savings Bank in January 1927, moving to Silverado and Girard in 1929.
The La Jolla National Bank, established in 1928, opened in temporary quarters at the southwest corner of Wall and Herschel Avenue before moving later that year to its permanent building at the northwest corner.
On Dec 10, 1928, a man walked into the bank and attempted to rob it, though San Diego police “had been tipped off that there would be attempted robbery simultaneously at four San Diego banks,” according to Randolph, and had two officers stationed nearby.
The bank’s vice president, a Mr. Plaister, confronted the robbery suspect, “a young man with a gun,” and the two shot at each other, according to “This Day in San Diego History” by Linda Pequegnat.
About a dozen bullets were fired, Pequegnat wrote; one grazed Plaister in the forehead before the suspect ran down Wall Street as police officers gave chase and shot their own guns.
One of the officers shot the suspect, later identified as Leander J. Schmelz, in his side, leading to his being found later by the police unconscious and dying during surgery, according to an article in the San Diego Evening Tribune.
La Jolla National Bank was sold to Security Trust and Savings Bank of San Diego in April 1933 and later became a longstanding Citibank location until 2023, when Citibank closed and reopened a few months later on Prospect Street at Ivanhoe Avenue.
Other banks have opened and closed in The Village, while still others have decided to leave and return and still others remain, proving La Jolla can always bank on its financial institutions.
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