Joseph Francis Sartori (December 25, 1858 – October 6, 1946) was a Los Angeles banker and civic leader, founder and President of Security-First National Bank, was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Country Club and the City of Torrance, and was influential in the development of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, Subway Terminal Building and Los Angeles Civic Center.
Early life Sartori was born December 25, 1858, in Cedar Falls, Iowa. His father, Joseph Sartori, migrated from Germany in the early 1850s. Though his family had lived in Germany for many generations, their origins were Italian. After five years as a bricklayer and plasterer in the United States, Joseph sent for his sweetheart, Theresa Wangler, the daughter of the burgomeister of Baden-Baden, Germany, and they were married in New Jersey.
Sartori showed his enterprising nature early in life. At the age of eleven or twelve, young Joseph began working on the railroad as "train butcher", selling newspapers, candy and other notions. When other men were happy to earn $30 per month, Sartori was earning $100.
Education In 1874, at the age of 15 he entered Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.
He was very impressed by the Navy and wanted to join. But his parents did not want him to enlist and, after some negotiations, they told him he could go to any school in the world. And so, at the age of seventeen, he interrupted his schooling at Cornell and went to Germany where he entered the University of Freiburg. Here, among other pursuits, he developed a deep love of music. He also joined the dueling club, but at this, his parents, alarmed, insisted he return home, where he re-entered Cornell.
Sartori was athletic, and especially loved baseball. This love, along with his ability and aggressiveness, made him a natural leader. When at first he was not allowed to join the baseball team, he created a competing team that challenged and beat the existing college team. He was known as an outstanding shortstop.
He excelled at Cornell, earning high grades, running the baseball team, competing in swimming championships, starting a new college newspaper and organizing dances, musical programs and social outings.
Because of his short stature, he "resolved to become so big that men would have to look up to me." He was young and ambitious and liked to do things where he could use his brains. He believed in hard work, industry and patience, and was a firm believer in progress.
He graduated in 1879 and came home for the summer. He decided to become a lawyer, so in the fall he enrolled at the University of Michigan Law School. There he learned shorthand so he could take down the lectures in full. Still, even with a full academic load, he managed to play on the ball team and attend dances.
Early career After graduation in 1881 he went to work for the legal firm of Conner and Shaw in Denison, Iowa, mainly working with land titles. Leslie M. Shaw would later become Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, and he asked Sartori to become Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, a post that young Sartori declined.
Sartori then moved to Le Mars, Iowa and partnered with lawyer Isaac S. Struble. At some point he realized he would not make a great trial lawyer. Through his work, he began to study buying and selling land in Northern Iowa and Southwestern Minnesota.
Struble, meanwhile, was elected to Congress, and Sartori then worked for lawyer Peter S. Rishel, a new arrival in Le Mars. Rishel was more artist than businessman, and Sartori offered to manage the business end of the practice, which prospered.
Sartori and Rishel joined Struble, forming Struble, Rishel and Sartori. It was at this time that Joseph met Margaret Rishel, his partner's daughter. They married on July 3, 1885, and went on an eighteen-month honeymoon. Though they visited Los Angeles in 1886, they thought that Kansas City, Missouri offered the best opportunities for their future. Sartori took an option on offices over Kansas City's First National Bank, and since the offices weren't to be available for a while, they returned to Le Mars.
Then Sartori got a telegram about the land boom in Southern California.
Move to Los Angeles On March 4, 1887, Sartori arrived in Los Angeles and traveled to Monrovia, California in the San Gabriel Valley, where the climate and country had impressed him on his last visit. But this time there was a new atmosphere of excitement and activity, and he thought he would check out the situation. He visited the Daugherty Ranch, 56 acres just east of Azusa, California, and took on option on the ranch for $150 on a Friday. On the following Monday Sartori took the train back to Los Angeles. A man named James Ganlon approached him, asking if he was the fellow who owned the option on the Daugherty Ranch, and purchased it for $8,500. Sartori was convinced he'd come to the right place.
He partnered with John F. Brossart and John Wilde, two old friends from Le Mars, Iowa, and laid out subdivisions in the Monrovia area, buying and selling lots. In one, the Pacific View Tract, he built his first home.
In Le Mars, Sartori had been a director and member of the loan committee of the Plymouth County Savings Bank and Trust Company. Since banking seemed more to his liking than real estate, he called on friends Brossart and Wilde, who, along with John H. Bartle, F.N. Meyers, and others, formed the First National Bank of Monrovia. A national charter for the bank was secured after he sent a telegram to his former partner Isaac S. Struble in Washington, D.C., who helped arrange for permission. In the beginning, Sartori became the bank's Cashier, while Brossart became President and Perkins was made Vice President. Later, Isaias W. Hellman became the bank's president, while Wilde was Vice President and Sartori remained Cashier. Hellman would become an important influence in Sartori's future efforts.
The bank opened July 2, 1887. Sartori would later become Vice President, a post he would hold until 1924, when the bank was acquired by Sartori's Security Trust and Savings.
In the summer of 1887, Monrovia decided to incorporate. The first election was held in December and Sartori was elected Treasurer, his first and only public office.
In early 1888, real estate sales in Los Angeles began to wane and soon the boom was over. First National weathered the subsequent depression, but Sartori saw that opportunities in Los Angeles would be greater than those in Monrovia.
Security Savings Bank and Trust Company
Sartori moved to Los Angeles, and by the end of 1888, he and a group of associates started Los Angeles Loan and Trust, then expanded that organization into the Security Savings Bank and Trust Company. The board first met on January 19, 1889, and elected F.N. Meyers, President, S.A. Fleming, Vice President and Sartori, Cashier. A number of other local bankers connected with the Farmers and Merchants Bank were involved in its founding. Isaias W. Hellman, Jackson Graves, Herman W. Hellman, and Ozro W. Childs were among the stockholders and served on the board of directors. Capitalized at $200,000, the bank opened its doors on February 11, 1889, in the Weil Building at 148 South Main Street.
While the national Panic of 1893 resulted in runs on some Los Angeles banks, because Security was a savings bank it could legally require six months' notice of the intention to withdraw any term deposits. Once depositors saw that the bank would not be subject to a run on its funds, the bank withstood the crisis.
But a disagreement was developing between Sartori and F.N. Meyers, who thought the bank was too conservatively managed. In January, 1894, in a proxy battle, Meyers gained control, formed own board and changed management, leaving Sartori and his friends out.
During the year he was no longer a part of the bank, Sartori formed a partnership with Maurice S. Hellman, with offices located in the Bradbury Building, to deal in municipal bonds and other securities. In this he was supported by Isaias W. Hellman, Herman W. Hellman, Henry O'Melveney and Jackson Graves. In the January 1895 meeting, through the purchase of Myers' nephews stock, Sartori and his friends were able to take back control of the firm. Sartori was elected president; Maurice S. Hellman became an active vice president, and Willis D. Longyear was made cashier and secretary.
It was the beginning of a new era for the bank. Sartori met the new opportunity with renewed sense of optimism - a belief in California and especially in Southern California.
Los Angeles Country Club Sartori became interested in golf when, out bicycling one day with a friend, golfer Ed Tufts invited the pair to try the game at a local course. He was immediately hooked.
A group in the West Adams district had organized "The Los Angeles Golf Club", rented 16 acres at Pico and Alvarado and built a 9-hole golf course, the Windmill Links, so-called because an old windmill served as the clubhouse. In September, 1898, the club decided to incorporate, filing papers on October 3, 1898, as the Los Angeles Country Club. At the time, Sartori was considered one of the best five players in the club.
As other communities began to form golf clubs, a group of these communities formed the California Golf Club Association on July 29, 1899. Sartori would be President of the Association from 1903 to 1905.
Late in 1899, realizing that the club needed a larger course, Sartori and other members organized the County Club Land Association and purchased a 107-acre tract from the Cottle Brothers for $25,000 at Pico and Western. Sartori himself planned the new 18-hole course, which opened November 4, 1899.
But even this course proved to be unsatisfactory, so Sartori and Tufts looked for a better location. They looked at 320 acres of the Wolfskill Ranch nearer to Santa Monica, California. On December 25, 1904, Sartori proposed a plan to purchase the property and hold it for the club. The $48,000 cost was soon subscribed. In October 1905, the Realty Company, the organization formed to purchase and hold the land, proposed to sell the club 145 acres for $22,300 and to use the balance of the property to finance the course and the clubhouse. The clubhouse, designed by Hunt, Eager and Burns, opened May 30, 1911. Sartori was elected president, and was continually re-elected until his death in 1946.
Growth of the bank In 1896 the name of the bank was changed to Security Savings Bank and it moved to Main and Second Streets. But, as the center of business activity moved, the bank moved. So it was, in 1904, that the bank again moved, this time to a new building, erected by Herman W. Hellman, at 4th and Spring Streets. In 1904, the bank purchased Thomas L. Duque's Main Street Savings Bank. In 1905, it merged with the Los Angeles Savings Bank, and by the end of 1905, its deposits passed $12 million.
In December 1907, the bank consolidated with the California Savings Bank, and then, on December 14, 1907, it moved into the new Security Building at 5th and Spring Streets.
Other fields Sartori was involved in Los Angeles' early oil and gas industries. In May 1895, the Central Oil Company showed Sartori on the Board of Directors. It was a part of Sartori's nature was to try to bring order out of chaos, and it was this that led him to call a meeting of 15 smaller oil companies in San Francisco, a meeting that resulted in the creation of the Associated Oil Company, one of the major oil companies in the state.