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Then and Now: Banks on Riverside Avenue
Riverside Avenue has been home to regional banks for almost 150 years. But three visible bank signs in a 1973 photo represent banks that no longer exist.
On the left, the “Fidelity” sign at Riverside and Howard stood for Fidelity Mutual Savings, formerly Fidelity Savings and Loan, founded in 1907. The eight-story building was erected in 1953. The McWilliams family led these “thrift” institutions that accepted savings deposits and specialized in mortgage and consumer loans.
After two years of significant losses in 1980 and 1981, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and state regulators forced Fidelity to merge with First Interstate Bank of Washington in March 1982. The FDIC estimated that it would cost $47 million to cover Fidelity’s losses.
In the center of the photo, the “ONB” sign indicates Old National Bank, founded in 1891. Its white 15-story building was erected in 1910 at Stevens Street and Riverside Avenue. It was the city’s tallest building from 1910 until 1929.
At the grand opening, thousands came to see the soaring lobby lined with granite columns and to ride one of five elevators up 14 floors. A giant ONB in the roof could be seen for miles.
ONB barely survived a 1933 crisis by taking a short “bank holiday.”
In 1988, ONB merged with Peoples National Bank of Seattle to form US Bank of Washington. Today, U.S. Bancorp, the umbrella holding company, is the seventh-largest bank in the United States.
The First Bank sign, at right, hung on the former Spokane and Eastern bank because it did not survive the Great Depression. The once-successful bank had just torn down the sturdy brick Traders National Bank and built a stylish art deco structure in 1931.
But a few years later, the Spokane and Eastern was on the ropes and forced to merge with the larger Seattle First National Bank in 1935. It became a branch of the bigger bank but was still called Spokane and Eastern.
The name changed to FirstBank in 1970 and Seafirst in 1974. Seafirst built a 20-story tower clad in glass and stainless steel in Spokane around 1981. The bank was acquired in 1983 by BankAmerica Corp., although the name on the Spokane building didn’t change until 1999.