For 100 years it has been the centerpiece of Fresno’s skyline. It’s arguably the city’s most recognizable landmark, a hi-rise tribute to Fresno’s boom years in the Roaring 20s. The story of the Pacific Southwest Building, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
Plans were already underway for the 15-story tower when LA’s Pacific Southwest Trust and Savings Bank took over Fresno-based Fidelity Trust in 1922. The building was the brainchild of Fresno lawyer, banker, raisin company executive and politician, William A. Sutherland.
Sutherland hired Fresno’s R.F. Felchlin company to design the new building. His instruction to architects Charles Franklin and Raymond Shaw was to create a monumental building that would be surpassed by no other bank on the west coast…