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Wells Fargo & Co. Wells Fargo was the brain child of Henry Wells and William G. Fargo. Henry Wells was born in Thetford, Vermont in 1805. He moved to New York when he was eight. When he was 22, he opened a school for curing speech defects in Rochester, possibly because of his own stammer. He married Sarah Daggett. At some point, he went to work for William F. Harnden, who is considered the "father of the express." In 1842, he met William G. Fargo, from Onondaga County, New York. He had been an agent for a railroad and an express company. In 1845, they formed a joint company that provided express services to Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago. Wells sold his interest to Fargo a short time later and moved to New York City where he formed Livingston, Wells & Co. Meanwhile, Fargo had formed Livingston, Fargo & Co. Livingston died in 1847. So in 1850, the two companies merged with John Butterfield's company, Butterfield, Wasson & Co. since they realized that competing against each other would only drive them all out of business. They were now called the Americans Express Company. Wells was the first president. Fargo was the secretary. John Butterfield was the line superintendent. They had been interested in going west and the gold rush seemed to be the impetus for it. But they waited a big to make sure the rush wasn't just a flash in the pan. Wells Fargo Co. organized in New York in March 1852. They made their first announcement advertising transportation between New York and San Francisco. They arrived in San Francisco in July 1852. Reuben W. Washburn and Samuel P. Carter set up an office there on Montgomery Street. After that they made a deal with Hurtado and Brothers for quick ocean express through Panama. By 1854, they had 24 offices in California. They struggled against the competition from Adams & Co. and Page, Bacon & Co. Then there was a depression in 1855 and both companies folded. Then Wells Fargo had a monopoly on all the business west of the Rockies. The first vehicles they used were the Concord stages, shipped around the Horn and landed at San Francisco. It cost about $1,500 for the stage, another $1,500 for the harnesses, and $3,000 for three good horses. The coaches were made by hand, no assembly lines, by Abbot and Downing. They were painted red with yellow and black trim. The age weighed a little over 2,000 lbs. It was designed to carry 15 passengers and their baggage. San Francisco was their headquarters, but Sacramento was their base of operations, on route to all the major gold camps. In 1857, $43 million was taken out of California mines, most of it carried by Wells Fargo. By that time, they had 87 express offices, mostly in California. That year they tried an experiment. They shipped the first ice to Los Angeles. Fires were a problem for them too. An example is the Grass Valley fire of 1855. The agent Delano was asleep in their building when the alarm went off, and the building was already on fire. The entire town of 300 buildings was burned to the ground that day. By 1861, shipping perishable foodstuffs such as oysters and butter to mining camps. They once delivered, a fire engine pumper from Baltimore to Sacramento. It had even taken over the Pony Express in its last days in 1861. Before the Comstock boom, Wells Fargo had been strictly in the express banking business, and most of the material they transported was sent on stages owned by someone else. Just in time, they bought a stage line running straight from the Washoe to Sacramento via Placerville, California. Dave Ward set up a Wells Fargo office in Virginia City, Nevada in 1860 and soon had a bank for deposits too. They also expanded into fast freight shipments, which took supplies to the mines. Wells Fargo also involved in transporting many of the women of ill fame and other dance hall girls to Virginia City, much to the delight of the miners. They were even responsible for "city" being attached to Virginia's name. They set up offices in Bodie, California, and Aurora, Nevada, about the same time. In peak times, there were 30 mines going at Bodie and Wells Fargo was there to ship the gold. The Bad Man from Bodie was their nemesis. He was constantly robbing the stages. Sometimes Wells Fargo didn't even care about whether the bandits were caught; they just wanted their money back. One such case occurred in Eurkea County, Nevada, in which a Wells Fargo agent was killed in the hold up. Once the money was returned the crooks' debts paid, the bandits got off scot free. Wells Fargo also set up shop at Austin, Nevada, to take advantage of another gold boom east of Virginia City. They opened offices all over Nevada to serve the late booming boom towns such as Eureka, Hamilton, and Candelaria, Nevada as well. Wells Fargo also had several branches in Mexico, as well as offices in Australia, Honolulu, London, Southampton, Paris, and Le Havre. In 1870, the first Wells Fargo shipment was held up on a train. Amazingly the same train was held up at Verdi, Nevada, and again, 400 miles away at Independence, Nevada. All of the men were eventually caught. In 1873, four armed men robbed a westbound stage to Grass Valley, California. They blew up the safe to get at the treasure. They only got about $7,000. In less than a fortnight, the men were caught by Wells Fargo detectives and local officers. In November 1876, three men robbed a stage near Redding, California. Aboard was none other than Ben Holladay and his wife. The gunmen got only $1,100 from the strong box and $700 from the mails. One was hurt. Wyatt Earp worked for Wells Fargo when he was leaving Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1877. When hitching a stage to Cheyenne, the Wells Fargo agent gave Earp a free ride, plus $50 to ride shotgun for Wells Fargo. He accepted. It was great publicity for Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo was also involved in trying to catch the stage robbers in Tombstone and Bisbee. Earp helped Wells Fargo round up the Clanton gang, which ended in the shootout at the OK Corral in 1881. Wells Fargo sealed its own fate when it refused to foresee the impact the completion of the transcontinental railroad would have on its business. When it finally did, it returned its stages from the Overland routes to feeder lines and began contracting with the new railroads to carry their cargo. The Central Pacific refused, since it had already contracted with the Pacific Union Express Co., whom Wells Fargo had competed with on the Reno to Virginia City run. Now Central Pacific had the monopoly. In 1872, Wells Fargo had to reorganize and Lloyd Tevis of San Francisco was its new president. The glory was gone from Wells Fargo, though they still ran feeder lines and went into remote areas. The last run went to Rawhide, Nevada, about 1909. The banking part of the business continued on totally independent of the express business and is still alive today as the Wells Fargo Union Trust Company. In the 1890s, though, it built some special refrigerated cars. Soon they were transporting fresh fish from the Great Lakes to the east. Salmon from Alaska was sent to Boston and New York. They set themselves up at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco as their main entertainment mecca. It was an appropriate meeting place the hotel had been built on Comstock lode money. Wells Fargo held state dinners and business conferences there. They also held weddings of executives and entertained visitors at the hotel. They even had a secret hideaway in one of the upper floors of the hotel. The final hurrah was the boom at Tonopah, Goldfield, and a few lesser mines of Nevada in 1900-1910. Wells Fargo stayed in Goldfield until 1911. By that time, the mining was finished and other railroads and cars had come in. Just a year later, in 1912, was the last attempted armed robbery of a Wells Fargo train. It was the Sunset Express, held up in Dryden, Texas. Armed men held up the Wells Fargo messenger. The man had to ask the messenger where the gold was kept. This was a clue to the messenger, David A. Troutsdale, that the robber was an amateur. He grabbed a nearby mallet, and smacked the robber with it, killing him. He then grabbed the man's rifle, leaned out the window and shot the man's helper. In 1918, as a National emergency measure, it merged with the Americans Railroad Express Company. Only the banking interests retained the Wells Fargo name. In 1923, Wells Fargo banking interests merged with the Union Trust Company, which still exists today.
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