Monrovia Savings Bank Building

Monrovia Savings Bank Building. . The First Presbyterian Church of Monrovia was organized in May of 1888, just as the land boom of the 1880s in Southern California was about to collapse. The congregation struggled financially for ten years before they were able to build their first church building at this location. The land was a gift from J.M. and Mary J. Studebaker of South Bend, Indiana, who had built a winter home in Monrovia. The new church was dedicated in 1898 and served the congregation for twenty-five years. After the present church on Foothill Boulevard was completed in 1923, the original structure was demolished. In its place was constructed a substantial brick building designed to house the Monrovia Savings Bank, a financial institution founded in 1903 and located two blocks south on Myrtle Avenue. Both the Monrovia Savings Bank and the First National Bank of Monrovia were merged into the Security Trust and Savings Bank of Los Angeles in 1924. As the second Monrovia branch, the bank continued to operate here for another ten years before being consolidated with the First Monrovia Branch. The former bank building was then divided into two storefronts. For many years, the corner location was a coffee shop, while the second location housed a number of succeeding businesses. The interior of the building was completely renovated in 2000, but all the historic elements on the exterior were retained. The building appears today much as it did in 1923.