A snapshot history of the Bank of America Building at 201 Petaluma Blvd. North
No site better expresses the changing look of Petaluma’s commercial architecture than the bank buildings that have occupied the northwest corner of Petaluma Boulevard and Washington Street since 1872.
Until 1865, local money lending was conducted by private bankers, most prominently attorney Isaac Wickersham and wheat merchants John and George W. McNear. In 1865, Wickersham opened I.G. Wickersham & Co., the first incorporated bank in Sonoma County.
The McNear brothers followed suit the next year, raising $100,000 ($2 million in today’s currency) to capitalize the Bank of Sonoma County. The bank initially operated at the southeast corner of Petaluma Boulevard and Washington Street.
In 1872, a fire burned down the Washington Hotel kitty corner to the bank. The McNears purchased the torched lot and constructed a new Italianate-style building to house both the bank and the Washington Hotel.
The building surpassed anything of its kind in Sonoma County. Standing at what was then the main entrance to Petaluma, it became the signature cornerstone of the city.
In 1926, the Bank of Sonoma County merged with Petaluma Savings Bank, and moved into a newly constructed building at 199 Main Street across the street (most recently the Petaluma Seed Bank).
The former building was purchased by the Bank of Italy, which retained the Washington Hotel portion of the building, but replaced the bank itself with a new Spanish Revival-style structure. In 1930, the Bank of Italy merged into the Bank of America.
In 1967, all the buildings on the block between Petaluma Boulevard to Kentucky Street were torn down to widen Washington Street. In their place, the Bank of America constructed a modern-style building facing the Kentucky Street side of the block, converting the former bank site to a parking lot.
Within 12 years, the Bank of America outgrew the building. Before tearing it down, they erected a new building on the original bank site at the corner of Petaluma Boulevard and Washington Street. It was designed in what the bank described as a “Victorian style” to better fit in with other buildings in the area.
