Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

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The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco is the federal bank for the twelfth district in the United States. The twelfth district is made up of nine western states—Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington— plus American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has branch offices in Los Angeles, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. It also has a cash processing center in Phoenix.

The twelfth district, the nation's largest, covers about 1.3 million square miles (36% of the nation's area). In 2004 the San Francisco Fed processed 20.8 billion currency notes and 1.5 billion commercial checks. The current president, appointed in 2004, is Janet Yellen.

The Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco has one of the largest collections of US paper money in the United States, which is displayed in the American Currency Exhibit.

[edit] History

The facade of the old Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco at 400 Sansome Street.
The facade of the old Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco at 400 Sansome Street.

The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank opened for business in rented quarters at the rear of the Merchants National Bank on November 16, 1914, in order to make the reserve provisions of the Federal Reserve Act.

In May of 1916 the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco had 25 employees. The check collection operation started in July 1916, and by the end of that year the staff had more than doubled to about 60.

At the end of 1923, the San Francisco staff moved out of temporary locations and into the Bank's newly built headquarters at 400 Sansome Street, a location that it would occupy for the next 60 years.

The Federal Reserve Bank at 400 Sansome Street was designed by George W. Kelha and built in 1924. The lower building with its Ionic colonnade is pure Beaux-Arts, while the upper building is in the new Moderne fashion of 1924. The lobby with murals by Jules Guerin who created the palette for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition.

In 1983 the bank relocated from its office on Sansome St to 101 Market Street, between Main Street and Spear Street, convenient to the Embarcadero BART or MUNI stop.

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