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Register of the Farmers & Merchants Bank (Stockton, Calif.) Scrapbook, 1915-1920
Mss274  
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Description
The Farmers & Merchants Bank Scrapbook chronicles the period of creation of the Bank's new headquarters building (1915-20). Approximately half of the scrapbook is devoted to photographs of the Bank staff and to various stages of the building process. The other half of the scrapbook is filled with clippings recounting events depicted in the photographs. Of special note are four photographs of President Woodrow Wilson standing on the back of a train car with Frank A. Guernsey. These pictures were taken at the time of Wilson's whistlestop tour of the United States on behalf of our membership in the League of Nations (1919).
Background
The Farmers & Merchants Bank of Stockton, Calif. was established in 1888 by Darius A. Guernsey, P.B. Fraser and D.S. Rosenbaum. These three men held successively the office of President of the Bank and were succeded (1916) by Darius Guernsey's son, Frank A. Guernsey (b. 1879). In that year the Bank erected a nine-story headquarters building at a cost of $500,000. Frank Guernsey also operated the Frank Guernsey Grain Company, as well as dairy and orchard properties on Rough and Ready Island. Although the Bank's new building endured, Frank A. Guernsey's banking career was relatively short-lived, for, by 1922 he had become a Vice President with the Union Safe Deposit Bank and, by 1925, both he and the Farmers & Merchants Bank had disappeared from Stockton directories.
Availability
Collection is open for research.