Wall Street West - Wall Street of The West

Wall Street of The West

The Montgomery Street in San Francisco started its transformation from the street with wood shacks, warehouses and retail stores in the 1850s. By the 1870s, more notable buildings were constructed to replace the old wood shacks and the mud flats. The street continued to develop from that point with financial services companies located in that area. The Montgomery Street has been known as "Wall Street of the West" to date. The Financial District has been expanded to cover the triangular area east of Grant Avenue, south of Washington Street, west of the Embarcadero. In 2012, when the Occupy movement had a protest at the San Francisco's Financial District as a continuation of Occupy San Francisco, the protesters went through the financial district under the banner Occupy Wall Street West giving the shorter name of the financial district than its typical name as Wall Street of the West.

For Denver, Colorado, the city started picking up some shares of commercial buildings in the late 19th century. There was a push by the local politicians to transform its Seventeenth Street to become the "Wall Street of the Denver" as seen in an 1892 pamphlet in promoting the Equitable Building by the Equitable Life Assurance Society. Other buildings were constructed at other corners of the 17th Street such as the Boston Building in 1890 and the Ideal Cement Building in 1907. By that time, the 17th Street had been referred as "Wall Street of the West". After the Colorado National Bank (First National Bank) was constructed in 1911, it reaffirmed its central business district's Wall Street status. The 17th Street was also called "Wall Street of the Rockies" at a later time as it attracted other premier financial institutions.

Los Angeles also picked up a fair share of financial companies starting in the early part of 1900s. The new financial buildings were concentrating along South Spring Street. The title of "Wall Street of the West" was used and the Spring Street Financial District was born. The district continued to flourish for many decades until the 1960s when companies started shifting toward the western part of the downtown area. By the early 1980s, many buildings were empty and the Spring Street showed no sign of its past as one of the financial centers.

Fort Worth, Texas was known as the "Wall Street of the West" starting in the early 1900s similary to Los Angeles's South Spring Street. However, it was not the financial companies that gave Fort Worth Stockyards its Wall Street name, but the livestock trading. In 1902, the Livestock Exchange Building was constructed to house many livestock commission companies, telegraph offices, railroad offices and other support businesses. The business grew to the peak at 1944 which processed 5,277,496 head of livestock. After that year, the livestock exchange business started to decline until its low point in 1986. The Livestock Exchange Building is now a historical site.