Title supplied by cataloger. Hemet is a city in Riverside County that was founded in 1887 and incorporated on January 20, 1910 with 992 people. Members of the Cahuilla Indian tribe first inhabited the area. During the early 1800s, it became a cattle ranch for Mission San Luis Rey, which named the area Rancho San Jacinto. In 1895, the Hemet Dam was completed on the San Jacinto River creating Lake Hemet and providing a reliable water supply to the San Jacinto Valley. Despite a severe drought in 1898-1900 and a major Christmas Day earthquake in 1899, the town of Hemet continued to prosper. Every year since 1923 one of the city's claims to fame has been "The Ramona Pageant", an outdoor play based on Helen Hunt Jackson's novel "Ramona". In 1950, Hemet was home to 10,000 people; as of January 2007, the city had a population of 70,288 according to the California Department of Finance. Information provided with this photo indicates that this was the bank vault of the First National Bank of Hemet, which was what remained after the 1918 earthquake. It also states that this vault was lowered into the ground and a new vault was built on top of it - a "new" bank replaced the earthquake damaged First National Bank of Hemet.
Type
Image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;14 x 21 cm. on sheet 21 x 26 cm. Photographic prints
First National Bank of Hemet (Hemet, Calif.) Vaults (Strong rooms)--California--Hemet Earthquake damage--California--Hemet Bank buildings--California--Hemet Building, Brick--California--Hemet Hemet (Calif.)
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