Who are the Eccles?
On Dec. 10, 1912, life in five Western states stood still.
In Ogden streetcars and automobiles stopped, workers in several banks in Salt Lake City and Ogden paused, workmen in sugar factories and lumberyards of Idaho and Oregon stood motionless. In Oregon and other states trains were halted.
For five minutes everyone silently paid tribute as a funeral began. David Eccles was dead.
In his book, David Eccles: Pioneer Western Industrialist, Leonard J. Arrington made the above statement, sighting Eccles as one of Utah’s wealthiest men in his day.
Today David Eccles’ legacy continues. The Eccles name can be seen on buildings in cities around the state including Ogden, Salt Lake City and at least 10 buildings in Logan.
Although David Eccles was the mind behind the fortune, many of the buildings carry the names of his children, all of which grew up in Logan.
According to Arrington’s book, in 1885 David Eccles took Ellen Stoddard as a second wife. During their first years of marriage, Ellen Stoddard Eccles lived in Oregon while his other wife, Bertha Marie Jensen, lived in Ogden. In those days polygamy was still practiced in Utah. The government, however, had begun acting out against it.
Eventually, Ellen Eccles moved to Logan where she lived her married life in complete secrecy. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued The Manifesto in 1890 which meant the church did not condone plural marriages anymore.
David Eccles continued his life with his separate families, living with Bertha during the week and Ellen on weekends. The women accepted their lives this way and raised 21 children between them, 12 in Ogden and nine in Logan.
Kathryn Wanlass, one of Ellen Eccles’ oldest living grandchildren, said she remembers her grandmother as being very kind and loving.
“She lived in the house at 250 W. Center St. for a long time and always kept it looking clean and nice,” she said.
Wanlass’ mother was Marie Eccles Caine, one of nine children who grew up in the old house in Logan. Today she is on the board of the Marie Eccles Caine Trust Foundation, along with her sister and brother-in-law, Manon and Dan Russell.
The foundation has been set up to help the community in the fields of art and education, Wanlass said.
“We just keep supporting things they [Marie and her husband George Caine] were interested in,” she said.
In recent years the foundation has been able to help renovate the Caine Lyric Theatre on Center Street, aid in scholarships at Utah State University, assist in building the art program on campus and occasionally buy a new piano for the university, Wanlass said.
According to information provided by Verna Lee Johnston, assistant to Spencer F. Eccles at Wells Fargo Bank, seven of David and Ellen Eccles’ nine children have foundations named after them today, each focusing donations to a different field usually relating to education, health or art.
Johnston said the foundations’ combined assets total over $1 billion, with the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation being the largest worth more than $600 million.
Where did the Eccles get all their money?
It began with the entrepreneurial endeavors of David Eccles in the late 1800s, Johnston said.
She said David Eccles moved with his family from Scotland to the Western states at the age of 13. His father, William Eccles, was blind but very skilled at working with a lathe. David Eccles sold spools and other utensils his father made on the street to help support his family after they moved to the United States.
Johnston said David Eccles saw an opportunity in his late teens to rent a wagon and a team of oxen so he could haul lumber to make money. Even after a lot of bad luck and hardships, he was able to continue different business ventures.
“He was an enterprising fellow,” Johnston said. “His mind just understood how businesses worked.”
She said David Eccles never had an office and carried all his business affairs with him in a notebook.
According to Arrington’s book, between the year 1873 and 1912 David Eccles founded at least 56 companies in five western states. Those businesses included sugar factories, banks, railroad lines, coal mining companies, lumberyards and an opera house.
“To a poorly educated person from a family with no savings or social status, the only way out of poverty was hard work and careful uses of time and resources,” Arrington wrote. “Eccles therefore concentrated his efforts toward the goal of accumulation. Every moment, every ounce of energy, every expenditure had to count toward the goal of accumulation and profit.”
After his death in 1912, David Eccles left his $7 million fortune to be divided between his two families, Johnston said. His 12 children in Ogden received five-sevenths of the money while the rest was given to Ellen’s children in Logan.
Because of poor money management, the Ogden family soon depleted their fortune, but Marriner Eccles, David’s oldest son in Logan, took control of the money left to his part of the family and began making wise business ventures, she said.
“Even David’s wife, Ellen, didn’t get anything because of legal issues with the marriage,” Johnston said.
Marriner inherited a mind for business from his father and nurtured the assets he was left very carefully, she said.
“Marriner was taught by the Great Depression,” Johnston said. “He understood how things would play out.”
According to information provided by Johnston, in 1924 Marriner and his brother George Eccles joined with the Browning family in Ogden to form the Eccles-Browning Affiliated Banks. Within three years they acquired control of banks at seven locations in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. Later the Eccles brothers created First Security Corporation.
During the Great Depression in the 1930s Marriner Eccles played a major role in the reformation of the Federal Reserve system and was the principal sponsor of the Banking Act of 1935.
Johnston said when other banks were going under because of bank runs, Marriner did everything in his power to keep his banks in business.
“On the first day of the bank runs he told his tellers to give out the money as slowly as possible and not to deny the customers anything,” she said. “The next day he realized this might not work again so he gave the money out as fast as possible.
“When people realized there weren’t any problems with his banks they turned around and got back in line to re-deposit their money.”
After working in Washington, D.C., for many year Marriner Eccles returned to participate in his family’s various businesses. One of the largest of these companies was the Utah Construction Company which eventually became Utah International Inc., Johnston said.
Utah International Inc. was the largest of six companies involved in building the Hoover Dam, she said. Under Mariner’s leadership the company sold to General Electric in 1976. The Eccles family still holds large shares in GE today.
Joyce Albrecht, assistant vice president for university advancement, said the Eccles are wonderful friends of USU.
“In some ways the university relies on the Eccles and their donations,” she said. “It isn’t only us, though. They give to organizations and universities all over the state.”
The Eccles seem to be in the business of supporting people and giving away money, Albrecht said. She said they do it because they want the community to be exposed to good things like art and science.
“When we moved from Florida we were amazed such a small community has so much art available to them,” she said.
Albrecht explained the name does not go on a building to show how great the family is. Usually it is done by a university just to honor them.
“They want people to walk around this campus and see that the Eccles really care about this institution,” she said. “In turn, the university has a great resp
onsibility to put this money to good use.”