A Former Bank Lies In the Shadow of the Towers of Healing — Where the Past meets the Present

A Bit of Loma Linda History — The First National Bank of Loma Linda

On the right (the section that is slightly taller) is the First National Bank of Loma Linda circa 1930. What a difference some eighty eight years makes (1)

On Saturday evening, November 30, 1929, the building in the foreground opened as the First National Bank of Loma Linda. “As customary in those days, the bank had its own currency, Federal Reserve notes in denominations of five, ten, and twenty dollars, bearing the name of the [bank]….During the lifetime of the bank it circulated 4956 Type I five dollar bills, 1798 Type I ten dollar bills, and 769 Type I twenty dollar bills. These bank notes became collector items in later years.” (2) Today, the building is used by the university.

  One of the five dollar bills with the name of the bank imprinted on its face (3).

When my late father was a kid, his dad was one the pharmacist up on the hill and one day my grandfather came home and told the family of an attempted robbery at the bank. Word was that a would be robber walked into the bank and told the teller behind the grilled glass to give him all of the money. To one side of the bank was the bank president’s private office, and on the other side of the of the room was the cashier’s desk. A watch maker who rented space in an open loft that looked down onto the mezzanine and heard the commotion. Before the teller could open the teller drawer, the jeweler put a jewelers tool in his hand and wrapped it with a handkerchief. Leaning over the banister the jeweler thrust out his hand and yelled that he had a gun and would blow his head off if he didn’t leave. The robber turned tail and ran out of the bank never to be seen again. And so, that’s a bit of history of a once little bank that would one day bask for fifty years in the shadow of the current towers of healing. Now, in the background steel columns rise for two more towers of healing that will cast an even longer shadow over one of the oldest buildings on campus.

(1) Courtesy of the Loma Linda University Heritage archives.
(2) Park, Dennis E.,The Mound City Chronicles, 1905 – 2005, The Centennial; Alumni Association School of Medicine of Loma Linda University, 2007.
(3) Courtesy of the compiler.