Jim Wilson (Los Angeles)

Jim Wilson (October 21, 1872 – February 8, 1956) was a pioneer banker and businessman of the San Fernando Valley who was on the Los Angeles City Council from 1933 to 1941.

Wilson was born on October 21, 1872, in Butler, Ohio, the son of John W. Wilson and Harriet Andrews, both of Butler. He studied pharmacy at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio, and moved to California in 1905. He purchased the first drugstore in the San Fernando Valley in what was then known as Lankershim, now North Hollywood. In 1914 he bought a general department store that he later sold and which became Rathburn's. He was associated with the development of North Hollywood and organized the Bank of Lankershim there in 1921. Later it was the First National Bank of North Hollywood, which he sold to the California Bank. He held an interest in the Lankershim Press newspaper, from 1925 to 1933.

He was married first to Grace D. McIntyre, who died on May 15, 1925, and then to Nena Evelyn Smith, on April 7, 1926. In 1934 he was living at 11026 Kling Street,North Hollywood, in a house that he built himself on the site of "the old Lankershim Rancho, first home in the valley." He was a Christian Scientist and a Republican.

He was the first president of both the North Hollywood Rotary Club and the Lankershim or North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, of which he was president between 1914 and 1923. He was the founder of the first Boy Scout troop in the San Fernando Valley.

Wilson died on February 8, 1956, in his home at 918 South Serrano Avenue, near Western Avenue and Olympic Boulevard, leaving his widow, Nina Sanborn Smith; a sister, Mrs. Claude Hunter, and a brother, D.L. Wilson, both of Ohio.

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