The Magnolia State Bank, organized, staffed, and wholly owned and directed by residents of Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, opened for business at 2231 32nd Avenue West on December 15, 1948. Some time in the late 1950s, the bank became the Magnolia branch of Peoples National Bank of Washington.

This photograph of Magnolia State Bank was taken the day after a lone thief stole $5477. Working in plain view of spectators passing the plate glass windows, a bandit entered the bank, forced six employees to get under a table, and then walked behind the counter and emptied the cash drawers. One woman looked in the window and signaled that she wanted to get in. The bandit calmly shouted that the bank was shut until 3:30 o'clock. The bank had previously been robbed by an armed and "methodical but nervous robber" of $13,000 in November 1950.

Caption information sources: Seattle Daily Times, December 12, 1948, p.51; and November 27, 1950, p. 1.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.