April 2007 Archives
Just read that President Bush has some Western art in the Oval Office 
. One of the paintings is by W.H.D. Koerner . In the Archives at Wells Fargo, we have a Koerner —well, sorta.
Once upon a time, someone got hold of some loose pages from a 1916 edition of Harper's Monthly Magazine . The pages are a story, "Ann Eliza Weatherby's Trip to Town" by Muriel Campbell Dyar. The story features two drawings by Koerner, including "The stage stopped before them in a cloud of dust."
Someone—that is, we—kept the pages as a clipping for the research files. (A beautiful illustration of the stagecoach is the sort of thing that grabs our eye here at Wells Fargo History.) Anyway, it's nice that we have this offhand connection with the Oval Office .
When Wells Fargo and Co. opened for business in July 1852, the president of the United States was Millard Fillmore . Fillmore found the White House had no books when he took office, so he started an official White House Library. Paradoxically, he was offered an honorary degree from Oxford later in life, but turned it down because he didn't feel he had the actual education to warrant the honor.
Fillmore is also connected to the greatest piece of historical fiction ever—the bathtub hoax . H.L. Mencken , a legendary humorist, wrote an article about the origins of the bathtub and credited Fillmore with a key role. It was a joke, done by Mencken for laughs. But it became THE story about the origins of the bathtub—no matter how often it was debunked.
Hmmmmm ... From art to the White House to a bathtub, all from a Wells Fargo blog. Amazing how art inspires the imagination. Or I'm just nuts—take yer pick.
All the same, really.
Spring has finally arrived, and summer is just around the corner. Goodbye mukluks . Helloooo flip-flops ! There are many wonderful things about the great annual thaw—songbirds outside your window; walking through the grass in your bare feet; boat rides at the lake; and, of course, summer food. There are so many foods that just don't taste right in the middle of winter, among them food on a stick.
Food on a stick is practical; it keeps your fingers clean and cuts down on the need for plates and silverware. Food on a stick is universal , found in cultures the world over. But one thing that is uniquely American is our love affair with food on a stick at the fair .
Fair food on a stick can be found across the country , but the Midwest—at least Minnesota —seems obsessed with the idea. The idea has been around 10 or 15 years, but the last few years it has taken off. Sure, there is the obvious fare: cotton candy, pickles, corn dogs , and pronto pups . (I won't start in on the corn dog vs. pronto pup debate .) But there is an entire menu of things that aren't normally found on a stick: macaroni and cheese, pancakes and sausage, spaghetti and meatballs, all on a stick. Other options include a Reuben sandwich, pizza, Scotch eggs, and hot dish on a stick. (Hot dish is what I believe people in other places call a casserole .)
Dessert is where it really gets good; chocolate-covered nut rolls, deep-fried candy bars, and deep-fried cheesecake on a stick. Luckily, food on a stick allows you to keep moving while you eat and burn off some of those calories!
From the Wells Fargo's Archives, a check brochure from 1972:
If you're concerned about our environment, you know there are many ecology organizations who need and deserve support. It was this kind of concern that prompted what we call our Ecology Donation Program. The way it works could hardly be simpler.Every time you purchase a supply of Wells Fargo checks during 1972, we'll give you the opportunity to have us contribute 25 cents out of the purchase price to an ecology group of your choice.
As the project managers understood, Wells Fargo's stagecoach checks and Western-themed checks would be popular. The 25-cent donations generated about $75,000 during the campaign, for worthwhile ecology organizations in California, like the National Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy .
"It's another case," the brochure added, "where 'little things mean a lot.'"
Go Green! Go Wells Fargo!
There is more about Wells Fargo's commitment to improving the environment here.
In 1979, Wells Fargo opened its first solar-powered branch in Culver City, Calif. The novel project underscored the company's expanding involvement in solar energy. At the time, solar air conditioning systems were unique—and way more expensive than solar heating systems. Wells Fargo's Culver City office was the first financial institution in Southern California to use this novel cooling technique.
The Alten Co. designed and engineered the solar energy system for the building. The drive-up canopy was topped with 840 square feet of solar collectors to provide energy to heat or cool the building. Customers and other curious people were able to see how the system functioned by peering through a glass wall inside the lobby.
Customers were able to do their banking outside at the two walk-up windows and three drive-up windows. Looking back, walk-up seems the most natural solar way to do business, especially in sunny Southern California. On the other hand, doing drive-up business at a solar-powered building is totally contradictory. But hey, it was the innocent '70s!
Click here to learn more about Wells Fargo's commitment to improving the environment.
My posts on Wells Fargo and the environment continue ...
Wells Fargo's response to environmental affairs began in
1970 , the year Earth Day was officially begun. Yet Wells Fargo had been involved with helping the environment and environmental agencies for much longer.
Forty years after Wells Fargo was established, the Sierra Club was co-founded in 1892 by John Muir, who was also its first president. During Muir's presidency, the Sierra Club
corresponded with John J. Valentine, Wells Fargo's president. John Muir the environmentalist was a Wells Fargo customer who depended on his local agency to assist with his banking and express needs.
In 1908, Muir sent Wells Fargo money orders to his daughter Helen in the Southern California town of Daggett . He also shipped the bounties of his beloved Martinez, Calif. , ranch via Wells Fargo & Co. Express: "I sent you today by (Wells Fargo) Express the jasmine you wanted," he wrote in 1908.
Later that year, he sent Helen some wine: "I sent by express today a crate of Muscat ... gleaned from the young vines on the Rodgers place. I paid a dollar Express [to] Mr. Shaw (Muir's local Wells Fargo agent). ... " And: "I have just sent you by Express a box of cherries Royal Anns , good raw or cooked. [We] picked them this morning and delivered them to the Ex Agent at Muir Station about 9 A.M."
Click here to learn more about Wells Fargo's commitment to improving the environment.
(My thanks to Historian John Keibel for his research assistance on this post!)
Colleague Keri is correct on Wells Fargo’s paper-saving efforts. The bank has been recycling for more than a century. In 1886, for instance, Wells Fargo sold its accumulated waybills, prior to January 1, 1885, for old paper. The rag content in the waste paper meant it could be reused.
Similarly, one agent might reuse the records of a previous agent. For instance, Benjamin F. Richtmyer was Wells Fargo’s Express agent in Drytown (Amador County), Calif. , from 1860 to 1875. His general store was busy constantly, for Richtmyer was also postmaster and telegrapher as well as express agent.
In 1875, Richtmyer became county clerk, moved to the county seat of Jackson, and continued to serve as a Wells Fargo agent until 1899. Of course, he left the Drytown office records for incoming Agent William Jennings (1875-1894). In 1884, general store keeper Jennings used Richtmyer’s 1860s money receipt books as scrapbooks to preserve bills for merchandise received.
In more recent times, I would find Hawaiian beaches strewn at the high water line with chopped debris from sugar cane milling. Bagasse, as this refuse is called, is about a quarter-inch wide, four inches long, and in great abundance. In 1972, Wells Fargo proposed to keep this problem in check by making checks out of it.
We do our part.
Wells Fargo was one of the first banks in the industry to offer checks printed on recycled paper. A green stagecoach, signifying Wells Fargo's ecological efforts, appeared on the cover of the Wells Fargo Banker in 1972.
On February 1 that year, Wells Fargo began printing checks on paper that was produced from 86% bagasse (pronounced buh-GAS') instead of wood pulp. Bagasse is the crushed, juiceless residue of sugar cane as it comes from the mill, which would simply become industrial waste if not recycled for paper. News of Wells Fargo's “bagasse checks” prompted postcards, letters and phone calls praising the bank's effort at ecology .
Wells Fargo chose bagasse in place of recycled paper because the latter could not, at that time, meet check-printing requirements. Foreign material in recycled paper could detract from the magnetic readings checks require. Plus, the quality of recycled paper was unsuitable for printing the
four-color stagecoach checks.
In 1991, recycled paper had improved for use as checks. Wells Fargo introduced new check designs printed on recycled paper.
"Wells Fargo is committed to using recycled paper in all areas of our business, from stationery to computer paper to loan applications. As a checking customer you see that commitment in monthly account statements and envelope made from recycled paper, as well as in teller receipts and deposit envelopes. Recycling is important to us and our communities and our goal is to do our part to make it work."
It's still a goal today.
Click here to learn more about Wells Fargo's commitment to improving the environment.
Got a note on the ol' comments page this morning, the reply to which (Good English, Chuck!) I want to share with all of you. It has to do with genealogy and how Wells Fargo's history is not, I'm afraid, all that helpful.
The note reads: "I am looking for information about an agent for Wells Fargo named __________ from El Paso to Yuma . Thank you." Signed by "Howard."
Well Howard, let me say right from the start that Wells Fargo thanks this agent for his service. Our reputation was made by people like him, doing the work on location and getting the business from point "A" to point "B." We here in the History department see many stories and images of people like him, working hard and building a 155-year heritage of excellence.
(That last bit is my own version of working hard and reputation-making. But it's true all the same.)
Anyway, our archives contain many records, and many kinds of records. But employee records are not a large part. There are several reasons, but the chief one is privacy. Anyone who worked for us and left a record of any kind is entitled to strict privacy.
There are other reasons why employment records are lean. Employment before the modern era (let's say 1945) was more tentative. People came and went more frequently, sometimes by choice and sometimes not. There were fewer laws about employment security and documentation. Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco had relatively few employees, and many of them left important records. Many of these we do have, but there was a pretty serious 'quake and fire in 1906 that impacted paper records.
Wells Fargo's Express had thousands of workers across the nation, but the offices were pretty local. They were run from drug stores, general stores, telegraph offices and the like—merchants themselves got the Express contract, and the people they hired also did Wells Fargo business. Offices in depots were staffed by employees of the railroads and the depot itself, as well as by Wells Fargo people.
All in all, we have very, very few employee records—especially before the 20th century. Family history and scholarly researchers will have better luck in local historical societies and in museums. State archives are good, usually housed in the Capitol or in a university.
If you must, you can send me your contact info and I'll look into it. But bear in mind, these types of records here are sparse—usually non-existent.
Good luck, Howard!
Working in the Archives at Wells Fargo, I have discovered many instances in which Wells Fargo has supported environmental affairs throughout its 155-year history. This is the first of several blog contributions to share information about two of my favorite topics.
April 22, 1970 , is when the Earth Day celebration movement officially began. That same year, in its Annual Report, Wells Fargo wrote a letter to its stockholders which stated,
"A basic trend on American life in the Seventies will be acceleration of concern with the quality of all facets of our existence. It will be accompanied by a growing need for capital to improve our environment, rebuild our cities, improve transportation, and eliminate air and water pollution. Wells Fargo is committed to do its share in providing capital and expertise in these areas."
And Wells Fargo did. During the 1970s (and since), Wells Fargo has ramped up its ecological focus on operations by introducing everything from recycled paper use to solar-powered branches. Over the next couple weeks I will share with you moments of Wells Fargo's ecological history.
Check this out to learn more about Wells Fargo's commitment to improving the environment.
On May 2, 1877, a woman in Oakland, Calif. , wrote to an eastern friend:
"Do look charitably on this writing, for I have a refractory thumb
The translation is, "Please don't mind the sloppy handwriting—I've been writing all day and my thumb hurts."
What occasioned this stint of sore-thumbness ? "I am a deputy in the Assessor’s office," she explained, "the only lady who ever held such a position here, and the only one in the Court House." A woman on the job was still novel in 1877, and writing was not her major challenge:
"Some of the Supervisors were much opposed to me and the under clerks in the Court House, who wanted the position, were quite exercised over the appointment ..."
Translation —"All the man bosses, and all the guys who wanted the job I got, were very upset when I got hired." She added, "They have all subsided now."
What was a shocking innovation to Alameda County officials would not have been to Wells Fargo. That same year, 1877 Wells Fargo employed Mrs. Emmet E. Rice in the Auditing Department. Ten years later, the company replaced eight men with six women, who audited more "quietly and accurately."
Wells Fargo & Co.'s position was quite in contrast to others. James C. Fargo, William’s younger brother, ruled American Express autocratically from 1881 to 1914, and he would not have female employees. In 1896, for instance, the younger Fargo bluntly stated, "If the company's business can only be carried on by employment of women, close the agency."
Wells Fargo’s first known female agent came aboard in 1873. Wells Fargo has prospered very nicely since then, thank you.
With a strongbox full of gold under the driver's seat, the stagecoach pulled by a six-horse team was an icon of Western commerce and development. However, in the 19th century, the navigable Columbia and Willamette Rivers and a low demand delayed the appearance of stagecoaches in Oregon.
"I have not received any letters from you for two months," a Gold Rush miner wrote his wife. "I hardly know what to think." Delivering the U. S. Mail overland, under contract with the federal government, drew Wells Fargo into overland stagecoaching (and later, the Pony Express). In 1852, Wells, Fargo & Co. opened for business in San Francisco, and Portland soon became the hub of Wells Fargo's banking and express business in the Pacific Northwest. William H. Barnhart, a friend of Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, opened the Portland Wells Fargo office (or "agency") in his general store on Front Street. Agencies were often in a town's general store or hotel—in one instance, the local saloon! Barnhart bought and sold gold dust, delivered letters, transferred funds, forwarded packages, and even gave advice on the Oregon potato market.
Wells Fargo expanded slowly in rural Oregon during the 1850s, keeping pace with the lumber trade and coastal steamer stops. In 1857, the first Oregon stagecoach line ran between Portland and Salem, and Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express was aboard. Overland stagecoaches began competing with oceangoing steamships in September 1858—the frequency was superior. By the 1860s, stagecoaches moved more mail than steamers—deliveries increased from two times a month by sea to 26 times a month by land.
In September 1860, the California Stage Co. linked Sacramento and Portland. At 710 miles, it was the second longest stageline in the nation. The company had 28 coaches, 30 stage wagons, 35 drivers, 14 district agents, 75 hostlers, and 500 horses. To the east, in 1864, Wells Fargo inaugurated expresses from The Dalles through Canyon City and from Umatilla by way of Baker City, both into Idaho. Wells Fargo's Express rode in other stagelines across Oregon. "Having opened offices at Forest Grove, Hillsboro, Lafayette, McMinnville, Butteville, and Dayton," Wells Fargo advertised in 1868, "we will dispatch an Express [from Portland] every Monday and Thursday morning ... "
"On the afternoon of the 8th of October, I left Portland for San Francisco by the overland route ... I took a seat in a coach of the California and Oregon Stage Company to commence my long ride ... Four gentlemen and two ladies with children occupied the inside while the driver had plenty of company on top ... Careful driving is required on these mountain roads, necessarily narrow in the most dangerous places, so that a few inches divergence from the single track would be a sure upset into the ragged abysses of darkness below. The night was radiant. I never saw more brilliant heavens, even in the tropics, than on the Oregon Mountains."
—Frances Fuller Victor, 1870
By 1880, Wells Fargo had 50 offices in Oregon, and within three years the company operated 75 express offices linked by stagecoach, steamer, and railroad. Stagecoaches kept rolling until the completion of the north-south railroad in December 1887. Even after the railroads came, the Wells Fargo stagecoach continued to roll in Portland's seventh annual Rose Festival in June 1913.
About This Blog
Our great history allows our archivists and historians to provide a rich online experience that bridges events in the past with an outlook on the future.
Read more...
Ask the Expert
