The first "Mormon bank" to be founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, was the Hooper, Eldredge and Company. The bank further expanded in 1872 and obtained a charter as the Deseret National Bank. The Deseret National Bank was an outgrowth of a banking partnership established in 1868 under the name of Hooper, Eldredge and Company. William Hooper was a prominent Salt Lake City merchant and Utah's territorial delegate to Congress; Horace S. Eldredge was also a prominent merchant and high official of the LDS Church. Their mercantile firm having been absorbed in 1868 into the church-promoted wholesale and retail house, Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI), Hooper and Eldredge entered the field of banking with their bookkeeper, Lewis S. Hills. Their bank was originally called "Zion's Co-operative Banking Institution," and the sign bore a representation of the "All-Seeing Eye of Jehovah," signifying approval by the Mormon Church of their venture and enjoining all faithful Saints to patronize their establishment.