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Building History

The noted merchant and banker Isaias W. Hellman (1842-1920) started his own dry goods store in Los Angeles, CA, in the 1860s. In the nineteenth century, proprietors of general stores, dry goods stores or bars sometimes agreed to hold valuables for clients in their commercial safes. Hellman was one of these, who held items in trust, for regular customers. This service grew into a lucrative career for Hellman who became one of the state's most important bankers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Hellman would later lead the Farmers and Merchants National Bank of Los Angeles for 44 years, becoming, by the end of his career, the most influential banker in Southern CA.

PCAD id: 14679