SHIPLER COLLECTION, UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Injudicious Mormon Banker: The Life of B. H. Schettler and the Collapse of His Private Bank By JACOB W. OLMSTEAD
B
ernhard Herman Schettler strolled down the dusty streets of Salt Lake City for the first time in the autumn of 1861 after making the three and a half month journey from New York City.1 Having made favorable impressions on George Q. Cannon, Orson Pratt, and others as a stalwart leader among the German and Swiss members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York City, he was brimming with the possibilities of making a difference in Utah, the Civitas Dei of Mormondom. Schettler was destined Salt Lake City’s Main Street lookto make an impact; however, it was not the ing south from the intersection of impact he had suspected in 1861. South Temple and Main Street, Nearly forty-five years later, in January 1905, the anti-Mormon organ Goodwin’s February 1909. Before this photo Weekly described a growing public percep- was taken, Schettler’s bank was tion of Schettler, who was by then a promi- located at 22 South Main Street. Jacob W. Olmstead is a graduate student in Western American history at Brigham Young University. 1 Bernhard Herman Schettler, “History of the Life of Bernhard Herman Schettler,” 51, unpublished typescript manuscript in the possession of the author, courtesy of Sandra Pitts.The author wishes to thank Dan Erickson, whose thoughtful suggestions apropos of banking, greatly enhanced the final manuscript and Vern O. Curtis whose generous grant helped see this project to fruition.
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