Idaho now has a gold-and-silver depository. Its owner says it can hold more than Fort Knox.

EAGLE (Idaho Statesman) — A gold and silver depository that its owner says can store more than Fort Knox just opened in downtown Eagle.

Precious metals dealer Money Metals Exchange, based in Eagle, built a $28 million, 37,000-square-foot “extremely secure location for individuals, businesses, family offices, governments, and financial institutions across the globe to store high value precious metals assets,” Money Metals said in an email Monday.

It doesn’t have machine-gun turrets on its corners as Fort Knox does. Fort Knox, built in 1936 about 30 miles southwest of Louisville, Kentucky, is considered the most secure bullion depository in the world, according to the U.S. Mint, which runs it.

But the Eagle depository does have North America’s largest Class 3 vault, the company said. That is the highest vault rating under Underwriters Laboratories standards. It would take two hours for someone using “common mechanical tools, electric tools, cutting torches, or any combination of these” to break in, according to International Vault Inc., a manufacturer.

The depository has advanced security measures, around-the-clock monitoring, secure access controls and a security team made up of armed former law enforcement and military personnel, the company said in a news release.

“The Western United States now has its very own Fort Knox, only substantially larger,” Money Metals said.

It is one of only about 10 private depositories in the U.S., said Stefan Gleason, CEO of Money Metals.

“As a business that began with a single employee based out of the historic Old Eagle Hotel back in 2010, we were pleased to be able to remain in Eagle with this latest expansion,” Gleason told the Idaho Statesman in an email.

The depository will bring more employment opportunities to the Treasure Valley, Gleason said. Money Metals says it now has 100 employees and delivers as many as 40,000 gold and silver orders per month.

The depository can store at least $100 billion in gold and silver and can be expanded to 60,000 square feet, the company said.

The construction project involved several local firms such as Wright Brothers Construction Co., Zions Bank, Erstad Architects, Integrated Security Resources, The Land Group and Musgrove Engineering, Gleason said.

SEVEN FACTS TO KNOW ABOUT FORT KNOX

According to the U.S. Mint website:

• Fort Knox was completed in 1936 and cost $560,000.
• The structure and content of the depository is known only by a few, and no one knows all the procedures to open the vault.
• No visitors are allowed inside. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only president who has been inside the vault. A congressional delegation was also allowed to visit in 1974.
• It stores a large portion of the country’s gold bullion in the form of standard U.S. Mint bars of almost pure gold, or coin bars resulting from the melting of gold coins.
• It holds 147.3 million ounces of gold. About half of the Treasury’s stored gold is at Fort Knox.
• In 1942, Fort Knox stored the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights during World War II to “protect them from danger.” These were returned to Washington, D.C. in 1944.
• The U.S. Bullion Depository has earned the title, “As secure as Fort Knox.”

MONEY METALS AND IDAHO LAW

Gleason and his company made news in April when Gov. Brad Little vetoed a bill that would have allowed the state treasurer to invest in gold and silver. For several years, Gleason, an entrepreneur who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, had urged the state of Idaho to invest in gold and silver as a safeguard against inflation.

He and Money Metals Exchange have donated to numerous Republican state and local candidates and the Republican party in Idaho.

Little said the fiscal note that legislators relied upon to determine the gold-and-silver bill’s impact on state finances failed to take into account “the many additional costs that will be borne by taxpayers for the storage, safeguard and purchase of commodities such as gold or silver.”