The First Presbyterian Church of Monrovia was organized in May 1888 as Southern California’s 1880s land boom was about to collapse, and after ten years of financial struggle the congregation built its first church at this location on land given by J.M. and Mary J. Studebaker of South Bend, Indiana, who had built a winter home in Monrovia. Dedicated in 1898, the church served the congregation for twenty-five years until the present church on Foothill Boulevard was completed in 1923 and the original structure was demolished. A substantial brick building then rose on the site to house the Monrovia Savings Bank, founded in 1903 and previously located two blocks south on Myrtle Avenue. In 1924, the Monrovia Savings Bank and the First National Bank of Monrovia merged into the Security Trust and Savings Bank of Los Angeles, and as the second Monrovia branch the bank operated here for another ten years before consolidation with the First Monrovia Branch. The former bank building was then divided into two storefronts, with a coffee shop occupying the corner for many years while the second space held a succession of businesses. Although the interior was completely renovated in 2000, the historic exterior elements were retained, and the building appears much as it did in 1923.