Ventura County Landmark No. 56: Bank of A. Levy

In the 1880s, Achille Levy, a native of France, established a commission and forwarding business in Hueneme. He would buy grain and other products from the farmers and charter sailing schooners to take the goods to San Francisco. Gradually he began lending money to the farmers and cashing their checks. When Oxnard was founded in 1898, he moved his business to a wooden building on Fifth Street and in 1902 to a brick building on the northeast corner of B and Fifth Streets. The building was designed by the architectural firm of Morgan, Walls, Stiles & Clements based in Los Angeles, California.

In 1905, the business was incorporated as a banking institution, Bank of A. Levy. Achille Levy considered his bank to be an integral part of the community; there were no foreclosures during his lifetime, even during the Great Depression in the 1930s. In 1927, with Achille’s son Joe as president, Bank of A. Levy moved to this Renaissance-style building on the corner of A and Fifth Streets. Many branches of the Bank of A. Levy were opened, but headquarters remained at Fifth and A Streets for many years.

In 1995, the Bank of A. Levy Company was sold to First Interstate Bank. At the time of closure, there were 17 Bank of A. Levy branches across Ventura County with about 65,000 customer accounts (Online Archive of California, n. d.).