1922 - City Improvement Company Building - Lodi, CA
N 38° 07.975 W 121° 16.447
10S E 651259 N 4221969
This dated building is currently home to a couple of establishments, one of them being the Lodi Beer Company and located on School and Oak Streets in downtown Lodi, CA.
Waymark Code: WMKFM4
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 04/07/2014
Views: 1
Located on the north side of the City Improvement Company building is a dated marker in Roman numerals, also mentioning the name of this building. The building is currently home to a couple of retail businesses, one of them being the Lodi Beer Company.
Through doing a bit of online research I discovered that this building was erected to house the newly-established Citizens National Bank. This new bank building was among three blocks at this intersection which underwent a revitalization project. The person responsible for this new bank and revitalization project was Wilson Henry Thompson (9/27/68 - 1953) and a genealogy webpage explains in more detail the history behind this building and an excerpt reads:
Recently Mr. Thompson disposed of his interest in the First National Bank, in which he had been vice-president and director for some years, and with others organized the Citizens National Bank of Lodi, being elected its vice-president. He saw a splendid location for the new bank and business houses on the corner of Oak and School streets; so he purchased the three corners and turned them over to the City Improvement Company, which was organized for the purpose of building up all the corners with substantial two-story store and office buildings and the bank home. The bank building is a Class A concrete and terra cotta building 50 x 75, and is devoted entirely to the use of the bank. The City Improvement Company also built the new post office building on Oak Street.
I also discovered that City Improvement Company's first bank president at Citizens National Bank was John Cory (1854 - 12/31/1930). There is a building named after him on School Street and north of Pine Street (currently home to Tuxedos of Lodi). Both W. H. Thompson and John Cory were two of Lodi's prominent citizens and factored much in its early development in downtown business prosperity.
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