Barbary Coast Trail (7) -- Bank of Canton

The next stop on the map is Bank of Canton, which is located at 743 Washington Street (between Grant Avenue & Kearney Street). It took us quite some time to find it, because it's not Bank of Canton any more. In 2002, United Commercial Bank acquired Bank of Canton of California. That's why we kept passing the bank without noticing it until finally we matched the address of the bank.


The former Bank of Canton

The pagoda-like building on the corner of Grant Avenue and Washington Street is formerly occupied by the Bank of Canton. It was built in 1909 as the Chinatown telephone office. From 1894 to 1949 there was a Chinese language telephone service which operated independently of the central San Francisco exchange; calls were put through manually. In 1847 the first San Francisco newspaper, the "California Star", was printed here.