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Banking Enterprises in Utah, 1847–1880

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Leonard J. Arrington
Leonard J. Arrington
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics at Utah State Agricultural College
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Abstract

The development of banking in Utah advanced by stages, each of which marked an increase in the degree of specialization practiced by institutions performing banking functions. After the first settlement of the territory in 1847, banking functions were assumed principally by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). With the inauguration of mining activity in the Mountain States in the early 1860's, formalized banking institutions were established in Salt Lake City. These miners' and merchants' banks predominated until the early 1880's when commercial banks were established in most of the settlement centers of the territory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 1955 , pp. 312 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1955

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References

1 Deseret News (Salt Lake City, weekly), 6 Nov. 1852, and advertisements throughout; [George M. Cannon], “Utah,” in Knox, John Jay, A History of Banking in the United States (New York, 1903), pp. 852–55Google Scholar; Williamson, Harold F., ed., The Growth of the American Economy (2nd ed.; New York, 1951), p. 232Google Scholar.

2 Arrington, Leonard J., “Coin and Currency in Early Utah” and “Mormon Finance and the Utah War,” Utah Historical Quarterly, XX (Jan. and July, 1952), 56–76, 219–37Google Scholar.

3 Arrington, Leonard J., “The Mormon Tithing House: A Frontier Business Institution,” Business History Review, XXVIII (March, 1954), 24–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Arrington, Leonard J., “The Settlement of the Brigham Young Estate, 1877–1879,” Pacific Historical Review, XXI (Feb., 1952), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Larson, Gustive O., Prelude to the Kingdom (Francestown, N. H., 1947)Google Scholar.

6 One reason for the tardiness of banking development in Utah was the fact that land in Utah was “free,” at least in a financial sense. Until the passage in 1869 of federal legislation providing for the ownership of land, a man could obtain the means of a livelihood (i.e., land) simply by going to the Mormon bishop and asking where he could settle. He “paid” for the land merely by laboring on a community co-operative canal. Under ecclesiastical regulation of property rights a market for land was practically nonexistent until the late 1860's. Hence there was no need of land banks, which played such an important role in other parts of the West. The absence of such banks, in turn, explains to some extent the lack of a sensational history of currency, inflation, etc., in pioneer Utah. The early monetary history of Utah Territory deals principally with the church's attempts to provide cash and credit for transaction and import purposes.

7 When H. H. Bancroft collected material from western territorial officials in 1862 for his Pacific Directory, the only banking house reported in Utah was the Deseret Currency Association (Bancroft Scrapbooks, 1860-1864, Vols. 27-28, “Utah Counties,” MSS., Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California).

8 The predominating currency in the mining areas of the Mountain West was “trade dust” — a mixture of black sand and gold dust which was carried in a buckskin bag or wallet or carefully tied up in pieces of paper. The local price of this dust in the 1860's varied from $16 to $18 an ounce. Some regions used this medium almost exclusively; others accepted greenbacks also, though usually with a discount ranging from 20 per cent to 25 per cent. The use of dust required that every merchant and businessman maintain scales for weighing. It also meant that the smallest price for anything was 25 cents — the price of a pinch of dust. “A shoe-string, a paper of pins, an apple, a copy of a daily paper” — all these were 25 cents, according to BishopTuttle, Daniel S., Reminiscences of a Missionary Bishop (New York, 1906), pp. 286–88Google Scholar. See also Knox, History of Banking, pp. 813–14.

9 Almost all leading income-earners in Utah during the years 1862–1872 were bankers and merchants. See my forthcoming article, “Taxable Incomes in Utah, 1862–1872,” in the Utah Historical Quarterly.

10 See Knox, History of Banking, pp. 829–31.

11 See Frederick, J. F., Ben Holladay, The Stagecoach King: A Chapter in the Development of Transcontinental Transportation (Glendale, Calif., 1940)Google Scholar.

12 William Russell and Alexander Majors, both small freighters, pooled their interests in 1855 and freighted from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Keamy and Fort Laramie. In 1857 Russell and Majors were awarded a lucrative contract to supply goods to Johnston's Army, on its way to Utah. Although the three principal wagon trains were captured and burned by Captain Lot Smith and his Mormon raiders, the firm apparently suffered no setback. William B. Waddell, a wealthy Missourian, joined the partnership in 1858. Operating as the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company, Russell, Majors, and Waddell initiated the pony express in April, 1860, in order to prove the feasibility of the central route and thus induce Congress to give the C. O. C. & P. P. Exp. Co. a mail contract. With the completion of the transcontinental telegraph line in October, 1861, the pony express came to an end with expenses exceeding receipts by some half a million dollars. Frederick, Ben Holladay; Majors, Alexander, Seventy Years on the Frontier (Chicago, 1893)Google Scholar.

13 From 1862 to 1866 the company operated under the Russell, Majors, and Waddell charter. After 1866 the stage company was chartered as the name given above.

14 Some Mormons failed to understand the function of the “money broker” banks of the 1860's. One prominent official, for example, wrote: “We have four extensive banking houses, and they manage to get nearly all the gold and send it away; while the people are privileged to use the ‘greenbacks’ for a circulating medium in nearly all their business transactions.” Surely he could not have wanted to “tie up” the gold as a local circulating medium when it could be used to obtain supplies and equipment at favorable exchange rates in the East (See Richards, Samuel W. to the editor, 3 Dec. 1865, Latter-day Saints Millennial Star [Liverpool], XXVIII [1866], 77Google Scholar.)

15 Instances are mentioned in Knox, History of Banking, pp. 668–859.

16 On the National Banking Act, see Studenski, Paul and Krooss, Herman E., Financial History of the United States (New York, 1952), pp. 154–55Google Scholar; Dewey, Davis R., Financial History of the United States (5th ed.; New York, 1915), pp. 326–28Google Scholar; White, Horace, Money and Banking Illustrated by American History (5th ed.; Boston, 1914), pp. 348–60Google Scholar; Dunbar, Charles F., Laws of the United States Relating to Currency, Finance, and Banking from 1789 to 1896 (Rev. ed.; Boston, 1897)Google Scholar; and Davis, A. M., The Origin of the National Banking System (Washington, D. C., 1910)Google Scholar. I am also grateful for the helpful interpretations of Professor Evan B. Murray, Utah State Agricultural College.

17 Annual reports of the Comptroller of the Currency, 1866–1869; Toponce, Alexander, Reminiscences (Ogden, Utah, 1923), pp. 145–47Google Scholar, 172.

18 Deseret News and Salt Lake Herald, 27 and 28 Sept. 1873. The First National successfully met a “run on the bank” in March, 1873, according to Salt Lake Herald, 21 March 1873.

19 Comptroller of the Currency to Leonard J. Arrington, 19 July 1955. It would appear that many of the assets of the First National were “tied up” in long-term loans to mining enterprises and businesses dependent on them which could not be recovered on short notice without great loss. When the Panic of 1873 broke, the assets of the bank were both “frozen” and valueless.

20 Northwest Mining Truth (Spokane, Wash.), V (16 Feb. 1920), 41–42Google Scholar. Mr. Joel Ferris, president of the Eastern Washington State Historical Society, and also president of the Spokane and Eastern bank, has furnished valuable material pertaining to the life of Warren Hussey.

21 Dahler, whose Colorado bank had been consolidated into the City National Bank of Denver in 1872, went to Montana, where he used the assets of one of the Hussey-Dahler branches there to found the People's National Bank of Helena. That bank also became insolvent in 1878.

22 Apparently it was not absorbed or succeeded by any other bank. Annual reports of the Comptroller of the Currency, 1867–1877.

23 With shares valued at $100 each, leading stock subscribers were: W. H. Hooper and H. S. Eldredge, 250 shares each; Brigham Young, William Jennings, John Sharp, Feramorz Little, and Lewis S. Hills, 100 shares each. Incorporation papers, Office of the County Clerk, Salt Lake City.

24 Utah had no provisions for incorporating business until the first general incorporation act was passed in 1869, and even this act contained no regulations with respect to the capital, reserves, and lending policies of banks. It was not until 1888 that Utah's territorial assembly made special provisions for the organization and operation of banks.

25 The officers were the same as in the previous organization. When Brigham Young resigned the presidency in 1873, William Hooper became president, and remained as such until his death in 1882, when Eldredge became president.

26 Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine (Salt Lake City), I (1881), 522–23Google Scholar.

27 The combined bank then used the title First National Bank of Salt Lake City until it was further consolidated with the First Security Bank of Utah, National Association, and surrendered the use of the name. An interesting account of the absorption of the Deseret National Bank by the First Security system is given in Eccles, Marriner S., Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal Recollections (New York, 1951), pp. 63–69Google Scholar.

28 This stock was held in trust by Mr. Jack until 1891, when the control passed to a syndicate formed by George Q. Cannon and Heber J. Grant. Using this stock as collateral, the Cannon-Grant Company borrowed extensively from eastern and coastal banks in order to support Mormon financial institutions during the depression of the 1890's. The Mormon Church later absorbed the obligations of Cannon-Grant and reassumed control of the bank. (See Diary of L. John Nuttall, typescript, Brigham Young University Library, entries for 10 April, 10 May, 25 July, 1889; Journal History of the Church, 16 April 1896, Church Historian's Office, Salt Lake City.)

29 Brigham Young to Albert Carrington, 3 Oct. 1873, Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, XXXV (1873), 681Google Scholar.

30 A Half-Century of Service, published by Zion's Savings Bank & Trust Company, Salt Lake City [1923], p. [7].

31 See incorporation papers, Office of the County Clerk, Salt Lake City; Deseret News, 22 Aug., 18 Sept., 1 Oct., 1873; 2 Jan. 1884.

32 The material on Wells Fargo is taken from Hungerford, Edward, Wells Fargo: Advancing the American Frontier (New York, 1949)Google Scholar; Cross, Ira B., Financing an Empire: History of Banking in California (4 vols.; Chicago, 1927), pp. 71–72Google Scholar, et seq.; and from a brief typewritten history of the Salt Lake branch prepared by the company in 1950 and furnished to the writer by Miss Irene Simpson, Director, History Room, Wells Fargo Union Bank and Trust Company, San Francisco, California.

33 Other Wells Fargo banks were located in San Francisco, New York City, Carson City, Virginia City, Nevada, and Portland, Oregon. The Virginia City and Carson City branches were closed in 1891; the Portland and New York City branches were sold in 1905. The San Francisco bank is still in operation under the name of Wells Fargo Union Bank and Trust Company.

34 Statement attributed to F. L. Lipman in the material previously cited furnished by the Director, History Room, Wells Fargo Bank.

35 Wells Fargo failed to take advantage of the opportunities for expansion after 1890. When the Salt Lake branch was eventually sold to Walker Brothers Bankers in April, 1905, its total resources totaled only $876,567, of which $457,234 was in cash and in banks. The bank, as mentioned, had no separate capital, and Walker Brothers paid but $50,000 for the owners' equity. (Minutes of Board of Directors, Walker Brothers Bankers, 20 April 1905, summarized in a letter from John M. Wallace, president, Walker Bank & Trust Company, to the writer, 3 May 1955.)

36 In order to emphasize the bank's growing trust business, the name of the bank was changed in 1931 to Walker Bank & Trust Company. The Story of Walker Bank & Trust Company, published by the company (Salt Lake City, Ca. 1942)Google Scholar.

37 Whitney, O. F., History of Utah (4 vols.; Salt Lake City, 1899–1904), IV, 624–26Google Scholar; Alter, J. Cecil, ed., Utah: The Storied Domain (3 vols.; Chicago, 1932), II, 285–86Google Scholar.

38 In addition to those named, there was a small miners' bank established by Cooper and McNiel at Wasatch, Utah, in 1869, which did not last out the year. Robert Anderson operated a small bank in Salt Lake City in the single year 1872; and T. R. Jones, a Salt Lake merchant, operated a bank successfully from 1877 to the 1890's. Information on state and private banks was obtained from U. S. Office of Internal Revenue, Utah District, Tax Lists, May, 1864, to April, 1873; Assessment book of Richard V. Morris, March, 1866, to Dec, 1869; Assessment lists and reports of O. J. Hollister, Collector, May, 1874, to April, 1878 (MSS., Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California); and Speirs, John D., “History of Money and Banking in Utah” (Master's Thesis, University of Utah, 1935), esp. pp. 107a–107bGoogle Scholar.

39 The National Banking Act prohibited the creation of national banks in cities of less than 6,000 population.

40 Assuming, of course, that the reports of the Collectors of Internal Revenue in Utah during these years are accurate.

41 The importance of tithing in the Utah economy can be gleaned from the fact that the total tithing receipts of the General Tithing Office in Salt Lake City in 1868 were $143,000, of which $25,000 was in cash, and this figure probably does not include receipts of all local tithing offices in the same year not forwarded to Salt Lake City, which may have amounted to as much as $100,000 additional. In the same year total deposits of all banks in Utah Territory were approximately $277,000, and the total value of all bank notes outstanding was $151,000. (See William Clayton Letterpress Copybook [1869-1885], p. 161, MS., Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City; also Table I of this article.)

42 Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789–1945 (Washington, D. C., 1949), p. 234Google Scholar.

43 The operations of banks in the nineteenth century are described in Dunbar, Charles F., Chapters on the Theory and History of Banking (New York, 1892)Google Scholar; Sumner, William Graham, A History of Banking in the United States (New York, 1896)Google Scholar.

44 Speirs, “History of Money and Banking in Utah,” pp. 107a-107b.