Banker, Los Angeles and California Civic Leader, Founding President of Bank of America, Los Angeles(1923). Son of Mervin Jeremiah and Olive (nee Hull) Monnette, and born on his father's stock farm outside of Monnett, Crawford County Ohio. Graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University. Attorney by profession, practicing in Toledo when he was urged by his father to join him in Chicago regarding an available lease on a mine in Goldfield Nevada. With this lease, shared with two other partners, his father struck gold resulting in the largest gold ore shipment on record to that date. Joining his father in California, Monnette parlayed his father's wealth and his own personal knowledge of banking and corporate law into a series of bank mergers that joined together the American National Bank of Los Angeles, the Citizen's National Bank of Los Angeles Bank and Broadway Bank & Trust Company to create the Citizens Trust and Savings Bank of Los Angeles. Following his exit from CT&SB, Monnette founded Bank of America, Los Angeles in 1923, serving as its first President. As the 1920s progressed, BoA found a partner in Amadeo Pietro Giannini, whose Bank of Italy (already struggling in the Los Angeles market after buying Park Bank) was looking for a way to successfully expand beyond its stronghold of San Francisco. First, Liberty Bank was merged into BoA LA, and then in the spring of 1929 BoA, L.A. merged wholly with Bank of Italy, Los Angeles, resulting in the creation of Bank of America, Nation Trust and Savings Bank (NTSB). As part of the agreement, Monnette sold the rights of the "creation story" to Giannini, and in turn, Giannini made Monnette co-Chairman of the combined interest. In addition to banking, Monnette also was appointed to the Board of Library Commissions for the Los Angeles Public Library, and then elected by the other commissioners to the president's position in 1916, a position he held until his death in 1936. Under Monnette's leadership, the system began an aggressive growth and modernization program, which included a new central library and branches through the greater Los Angeles area. Also instituted was a system for moving books for patrons to pick up at branch locations, thus allowing the branch patrons to enjoy all titles in the system without the added expense of buying many multiple copies of titles. In his spare time, Monnette was an avid genealogist publishing several volumes of works. Upon his death, his passing was noted by newspapers, worldwide. Alone, in the City of Los Angeles resolutions were passed by the City, city boards within Departments, genealogy and history societies joined in as well. As a tribute to the respect that he held within the BoA structure, individual resolutions were passed by every branch in the greater Los Angeles area. In the late 1950s, his widow and daughter donated Orra Monnette's personal library, consisting of over 900 books on genealogy, and over 121 titles (with multiple volumes of titles) of magazines, journals and other published materials to the Los Angeles Public Library's genealogy collection in the central library. The donation was officially made available to the public in 1961 at which time a bronze memorial plaque was unveiled outside of the History and Genealogy room. Following the fire at the central library in the mid-1980s, the plaque was reinstalled in the restored library's second-floor main stair hall, along with other plaques commemorating the building and the Board.