Zion Bank
Zion Bank is a member of S&P 500 and has a headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a company that, as of June 30, 2008, had collected more than $54.6 billion in assets. On top of that, this is a company that actually has more than 11,000 people employed for them. So in a nut shell, this is a company that is very big, but have they always been this big?
The history of Zion Bank is a long one that actually goes all the way back to the very early days of the LDS settlement in Utah. Pretty much, Zion is able to trace its history all the way back to 1873 when it first opened. The company itself was founded by a Mr Brigham Young. Now when Zion Bank first started up, the first settlers of Utah had only been there about 26 years. Not only that, but Utah itself was still about 23 years away from statehood when this bank first came to be.
Because of the early history of Zion Bank, it is actually Utah’s very first chartered savings bank and trust company. Over the next twenty years the company would grow and prosper. In the big panic of 1893, the bank would not only remain solvent, but it was one of the few banks to actually continue to grow during this time.
During the start of the twentieths century, Zion Bank would actually go on to help finance many firms. Some of the big names of the firms that were financed by Zion Bank were Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad Company, Salt Lake Gas Company, and even Big Cottonwood Power Company. The only time that Zion Bank did not see growth was during the great depression of 1929. At the start of the crash Zion was in a very sound financial position. However, in 1932 customers began to run on the bank and tellers were instructed to honor all withdrawal requests.
During the first two and a half days, almost $1.5 million was withdrawn. However, a few days later many customers returned to the bank to redeposit their money. This was the biggest scare that Zion Bank had, but it was able to overcome it by putting the people first. By the time that 1957 rolled around Zion Bank merged with Utah Savings and Trust Company, as well as First national Bank of Salt Lake City. This is when the name was changed to Zion First National Bank.
In the end what you have is a company that has had way more ups than downs. However, when it was faced with a hard spot, it was able to overcome it. These are the kinds of companies that you want to entrust your money to. You do not want to give your money to people who would refuse to give it back, like many banks did during the Great Depression, and you do not want to bank with companies that fell apart during that time either. You want to bank with a bank that has been there and seen it all. You want to be with Zion Bank.
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