Valley National Bank Drawings Collection

The Valley National Bank can be traced to the Gila Valley Bank, founded in 1899 in Solomonville, Arizona. By 1902, the Gila Valley Bank had opened branch offices in other towns and grew to be the largest bank in Arizona by 1914. The Valley Bank was founded in Phoenix in 1914. Although entirely separate from each other, the Gila Valley Bank and the Valley Bank had the same individuals as administrators.

In 1922, the Valley Bank and the Gila Valley Bank and Trust Company merged to form the Valley Bank and Trust Company headquartered in Phoenix. Over the next few decades the Valley Bank absorbed several small banks in Arizona. In 1935, the Consolidated National Bank of Tucson merged with the Valley Bank and Trust Company, forming the Valley National Bank.

By 1950, the Valley National Bank had 29 branches, 250,000 customers, and 2/3 of all bank credit business in Arizona. In 1950 the Valley National Bank was the largest bank in the Rocky Mountain Region and was the 76th largest bank out of the 15,000 banks in the United States. The Valley National Bank continued to be the major banking establishment in Arizona for the next 40 years. In the 1990s, the Valley National Bank was absorbed by Bank One (of the Banc One Corporation).