First National Bank of Utah
Also known as the Bamberger Building, Masonic Hall, and Wells Fargo Building.
The First National Bank of Utah, once the Territory’s most publicized financial institution, failed because of the shady operations of its president, Warren Hussey, closing only five years after its incorporation.
In the 1860s, Utah Territory began relying more on mining over agriculture, with eventually hundreds of claims dotting its landscape. Salt Lake City, serving as Utah Territory’s capital, benefitted most from this economic expansion, attracting miners and investors alike. Warren G. Hussey, a gold broker operating across the Intermountain West, expanded into the financial realm by purchasing the Miners’ National Bank of Salt Lake in 1869, notably the year of the Transcontinental Railroad’s completion, reorganizing it into the First National Bank of Utah.
Hussey quickly established this new bank as Utah’s most important financial house, with total assets in 1871 amounting to $582,000. Hussey appeared so adept in banking that dividends, or returns to shareholders on investments, amounted to one hundred percent in 1871-2. In 1872, Hussey bought out any remaining stock in circulation, becoming First National’s sole owner, and decided to construct a new banking facility.
Commenced in early 1871, First National’s new building opened in September 1873. Designed by Thomas J. Johnson, a San Francisco-based builder, and Richard M. Upjohn, one of the United States’s foremost architects. No expense was spared, with total cost ballooning to $140,000, far higher than initial estimates. Its opening also aligned with the Panic of 1873, an economic recession causing bank runs across the United States. In response, Hussey suspended deposit payouts the month the new building opened. He also held interests in Utah’s Emma Mine, an operation riddled with fraudulent activity, losing tens of thousands of dollars upon its closure in 1873 after reports of its rich silver deposits being falsified.
However, First National’s economic condition appeared sound. The U.S. Comptroller, the monitoring office for financial activities, reopened the bank in October 1873 after reporting that the bank’s resources were four times higher than deposits. Within fourteen months, however, the Comptroller shut down First National in December 1874, citing incompetent management. After its liquidation was finalized in 1878, only twenty-five percent of clients received compensation.
Hussey embezzled First National’s remaining assets into a personal account and continued opening banks across the Intermountain West. Notably, Hussey opened the Spokane National Bank in Washington in 1888, again investing considerable sums into a lavish headquarters. This bank failed in 1891, attributed to risky mining investments and negligible financial practices. Hussey, aged eighty-three, died in his Spokane home in 1920.
In 1875, First National’s building suffered from a city-wide fire, losing its fourth story, never to be rebuilt. However, the structure continued serving as office spaces, and the Deseret National Bank (now Zion Bancorporation) occupied the first floor into the 1880s. Utah’s territorial archives lodged the second level, and the Oddfellows, a fraternal society, filled the third story until 1896, with their private library located on the second floor.
Around 1885, Simon Bamberger, a Utah financier, purchased the building to house his business offices. Eventually, Bamberger became Utah’s governor in 1917 and the building served as a movie theater for several decades. Since the 1990s, the First National Bank Building has housed multiple commercial businesses, remaining one of Salt Lake City's most recognizable nineteenth-century structures.
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