In the span of roughly 50 years, Fresno went from a tiny railroad town with dirt streets and handful of buildings, to a thriving city, with a skyline topped by the palatial 15-story Pacific Southwest Building. So how did it happen, and more specifically, why? The story of the birth of Fresno’s most iconic building, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
This story is all about the Roaring 20s, big banks and raisins. When M. Theo Kearney died in 1906, the raisin industry was in disarray. His efforts to organize the industry had failed. But in 1913, major growers and attorney William A. Sutherland gave Kearney’s vision another shot, creating the California Associated Raisin Company. The co-op corralled the market, and eventually changed its name to Sun-Maid. Agriculture in the valley was now big business.
Up to this point local farmers relied on local banks. But all that ended when San Francisco banker A.P. Giannini brought his Bank of Italy to Fresno in 1916. Fresh off his success helping to rebuild San Francisco after the earthquake, he shook up the Fresno banking market, setting off a wave of competition and consolidation. The Bank of Italy also built an elegant eight-story banking palace at Fulton and Tulare Streets.
Then the Great Influenza pandemic hit. When the leader of Fresno’s Bank of Central California died amid a merger with a rival bank, two leaders from Sun-Maid stepped up to run the bank, Wyllie M. Giffen and William A. Sutherland. The Fidelity Trust and Savings Bank was then purchased by LA’s Pacific Southwest Bank.
Sutherland continued to run the Fidelity branch, and in 1923 they broke ground on the fifteen-story Pacific Southwest Building at the corner of Fulton and Mariposa. It was completed in 1925. It held the title of Fresno’s tallest building for over 80 years and still defines the city’s skyline to this day.
