Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Information & Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Links at HealthHaven.com

Coordinates: 37°47′37″N 122°23′44″W / 37.7936°N 122.3956°W / 37.7936; -122.3956

Federal reserve districts, of which the 12th is largest and most populous

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 the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Guam. 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 is the nation's largest by area and population, covering 1.3 million square miles (36% of the nation's area) and 60 million people. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco is the third-largest by assets held, after New York and Richmond.^[1] 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 façade 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 1924, 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 building, designed by George W. Kelham, has an Ionic colonnade that 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 to larger and more modern facilities on 101 Market Street as the 400 Sansome Street location was sold to private developers who rented out the space. Prominent law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe was headquartered in the building until 2002 when the firm moved out of the space. The building continues to be owned by private developers and currently has no tenants.