Wells Fargo
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The name Wells Fargo evokes the image of the six-horse stagecoach loaded with gold thundering across the American West. The full history–over more than 152 years–is that and much more. It is woven into the history of our nation and communities, rich in detail and extending Ocean-to-Ocean and Over-the-Seas, to quote the Company's slogan of 1888.
In 1852 Henry Wells and William Fargo founded Wells, Fargo & Co. to serve the West. The new company offered banking – buying gold, selling paper bank drafts as good as gold – and express – rapid delivery of the gold and anything else valuable. Wells Fargo opened for business in the gold rush port of San Francisco, and soon Wells Fargo’s agents opened offices in the other new cities and mining camps of the West.
In the boom and bust economy of the 1850s, Wells Fargo earned a reputation of trust dealing rapidly and responsibly with people’s money. In the 1860s it earned everlasting fame–and its corporate symbol–with the grand adventure of the overland stagecoach line.
Wells Fargo sent its business by the fastest means possible: stagecoach, steamship, railroad, pony rider or telegraph. In 1858 Wells Fargo helped start the Overland Mail Company stageline, known as the “Butterfield” after O.M.C. president John Butterfield. In 1860, the O.M.C., now under Wells Fargo’s control, moved north to the central overland route–the route of the famed Pony Express.
In 1861 the Wells Fargo-run O.M.C. took over operations of the western leg of the Pony. Wells Fargo continued printing stamps for and sending business by the Pony Express. But then the Overland Telegraph was completed, linking east and west with instant messages, and the Pony Express rode into history.
In 1866, Wells Fargo combined all the major western stage lines. Wells Fargo stages rolled over 3,000 miles of territory, from California to Nebraska, and from Colorado into the mining regions of Montana and Idaho. After the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, Wells Fargo increasingly rode the rails. Expanding along the new steel network, Wells Fargo became the country’s first nationwide express company in 1888 and its “Ocean-to- Ocean” service connected over 2,500 communities in 25 states.
Wells Fargo rushes customers’ business from the urban centers of New York and New Jersey, through the rail hub of Chicago and farming regions of the Midwest, to ranching and mining centers in Texas and Arizona, and to lumber mill towns in the Pacific Northwest.
By 1910 the Company’s network linked 6,000 locations, including new offices in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions. Wells Fargo agents in towns large and small offered basic financial services like money orders, travelers checks, and transfer of funds by telegraph.
It was in these towns that the famed Wells Fargo Wagon delivered goods of all sorts, from a grey macinaw to some grapefruit from Tampa.
By 1918 Wells Fargo was part of 10,000 communities across the country. That year, however, the federal government took over the nation’s express network as part of its effort in the First World War. Wells Fargo was left with a bank in San Francisco....
