Warren Hussey Diaries, 1880-1886

Warren Hussey was born near Terre Haute, IN in 1836. At the age of nineteen, he went to Leavenworth, KS to join one of Russell, Majors and Waddell’s supply trains bound for Salt Lake City. He left the train at Fort Kearny, NE and by 1861 had worked his way to Denver, CO, where he opened an office for the purchase of gold. In 1865, in association with Charles Dahler, Hussey began operation of a banking house in Salt Lake City that became Utah’s largest banking institution. During the panic of 1873, Hussey’s bank failed, but he continued to promote mining investments, particularly his Leadville, CO properties.

In 1883 Hussey set out for the Coeur d’Alene mining district of Idaho, where a new gold strike had been made. He established the Eagle City Bank, serving as its president, teller, janitor, and cashier. When Eagle City began to wane, Hussey transferred his interests to Murray and established the Bank of Murray. In 1886, with the development of the Bunker Hill & Sullivan silver mines at Wallace, Hussey again established banking interests at a new location, this time under the name of Bank of Wallace.

Leaving operation of his Coeur d’Alene banking enterprises to his son Charles, Hussey moved to Spokane Falls in 1886 and established the Spokane National Bank. The bank building was destroyed in the Spokane fire of 4 August 1889, but Hussey began rebuilding immediately and successfully operated the business until its failure in the Panic of 1893. Through the sale of his interests in the Morning Mine in Mullan, ID, Hussey was able to repay his bank’s depositors 95 cents on the dollar. During his later years Hussey dealt in stocks on Wall Street in New York, but he never regained his earlier fortunes.