In May 1976, Wells Fargo Bank's Corporate Responsibility Committee found vanpools  "offer significant potential energy savings." The committee recognized the energy conservation that could be realized by such a program and referred it to the appropriate departments in the bank for implementation.

Environmental consciousness  developed quickly in the 1970s, thanks to the protest movements of the '60s and to the overwhelming pollution scourging the nation. In 1973, the gas crisis  raised prices at the pump and caused a major upheaval in the way Americans thought about their cars. (Check this outstanding report  on it.) Conservation became an important method for balancing supply with demand. People were looking for ways to save gas.

One method was to carpool, to find others who were going the same place and double up. In time, casual carpools  emerged as a way to commute. But vanpooling was the big idea that bridged business support with individual commuter habits. Businesses sponsor the vans and their maintenance, while rider-workers pay a reasonable fare and drive. The vans have dedicated routes, from a neighborhood to a business location.

The whole thing has worked pretty well, considering the long list  of vanpool and ride-sharing programs that exist. And the United States Environmental Protection Agency  actually rates the best programs and models the best areas for these programs.

But back in those halcyon '70s , when all this was the juncture of critical problem and forward thinking, the concept of riding together with people who were not family was new. But for Wells Fargo, the idea wasn't so new. From the beginning, the company supported the idea of taking as many passengers as the vehicle could handle!

Posted by Charles at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in At Work, Environment, Get Involved, Misc, Participate, Perspective, Prepare, Remember, Ride sharing, Stagecoach, Vanpools, Wells Fargo Bank

Owatonna, Minn.,  is a community of 24,000 people south of the Twin Cities . Wells Fargo proudly occupies the bank at 101 North Cedar St., an architectural marvel from 1908 by Louis Sullivan .

Sullivan designed high-rises and rooted his philosophy in the phrase "form follows function." That is, a building took on a look and shape because of what went on in and around it. To some, Sullivan was "the father of modernism." For Owatonna, a bank functioned as the center of a community's aspirations, individual citizens and collectively. The building should be seen as a temple to that aspiration .

The National Farmers Bank of Owatonna got Sullivan to begin work in 1907, and the building was opened a year later. The interior elements were fabulous, with all kinds of materials and colors (would you believe terra cotta?)  It was one of the wonders of the banking world. And it still is, after a couple of restoration projects.

National Farmers Bank went out of business in 1926, and the building was acquired by Security State Bank. In 1929, Security State Bank joined Banco, the Northwestern National parent company in Minneapolis. Banco was a family of local banks held together for "strength in numbers" and survived the economic devastation of the 1930s. Banco evolved into Norwest , which merged with Wells Fargo in 1998.

Posted by Charles at 02:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Artifacts, Farmers, Misc, Perspective, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank

Sparkletack  features an amazing video. It is the film taken by a tourist in 1941, visiting San Francisco with a movie camera. Sparkletack got the video, as he writes, from the Prelinger Archives . (It continues here.) 

If you're into things San Francisco, as many people are (especially San Franciscans, let me tell ya), you'll appreciate the footage for obvious reasons. John Summers, the filmer (is that a word?), enjoyed a day of brilliant sunshine and fairy-tale blue skies. He rode around on cable cars  and trolleys  (BIG difference) and got remarkable shots of a city before the huge transition resulting from World War II.

Summers was especially intrigued with Chinatown , holding his camera on people a little too long, to their minor annoyance. People see a camera and turn away quick (like me, prince of Unphotogenica). Makes sense in 1941—people were still pretty local in those days, and many had probably only heard of ethnic Americans. It had to be exotic.

For me, the best part of the Chinatown footage is that history of cuisine. What we now know as "Chinese food" used to be known by many as "Chop Suey."  Also, there's a near-collision on Grant and Clay streets about 12:25 into the film. Excitement, thy name is History.

Finally, check out Wells Fargo's world headquarters at Montgomery and Market streets at 6:09. It's this building—in living color!

Posted by Charles at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Artifacts, Films, First-hand Accounts, Holidays, Misc, Movies, Photographs, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank

Last week's post on steamers prompted this elaboration by Steve Greenwood, our Curator at Wells Fargo's Portland History Exhibit. (CR)

Steamers were a vital part  of the Pacific Northwest's economy, and the discovery of gold  in Oregon, Idaho and Montana in 1860 and 1861 advanced trade on the Columbia and Willamette rivers. Portland's location at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia established it as the shipping center for the Pacific Northwest and an ideal hub for Wells Fargo's express business.

(Steamboats  were smaller steam-powered boats that traveled on lakes and rivers, while steamships  generally referred to larger steam-powered oceangoing vessels that gradually replaced sailing ships during the 19th century. By the second half of the 20th century, diesel-powered ships had replaced steamships.)

Incoming steamships delivered eagerly awaited family and friends, letters from loved ones, packages, and the latest news from "the States." "I hear the old Steamer Gun," a woman recorded with anticipation in 1863, "and I wonder if I shall get a letter in the morning. That is what I always think when I hear it." Northbound steamships called at Crescent City, Astoria, Portland, and Victoria, British Columbia. Steamships took 3½ days to sail from San Francisco to Portland, and Wells Fargo's express messengers traveled onboard and guarded packages, mail, and millions in gold. Once underway, messengers inventoried express items, checked shipping documents and waybills, and sorted letters and business documents for immediate delivery.

No one knew when the steamship would dock—except at night somewhere between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. Wells Fargo's agent for Portland, Eugene Shelby, recalled: "The greater part of steamer night found us all waiting at the office, and generally little sleep was secured on those occasions." The Wells Fargo messenger hauled the express to the office and readied it for morning delivery.

Wells Fargo also took to the rivers. Steamboats plied the waters 13 miles south from Portland to Oregon City and then 125 miles to Eugene. Steamboat travel on the Willamette began in the 1850s with routes both above and below Willamette Falls at Oregon City . By the 1860s, early steamboat companies portaged people and goods around the waterfalls on a primitive road and wooden rail system. Built in 1873, the Willamette Falls Locks  enabled steamboats to travel between Portland and Eugene without portaging. By 1882, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Co. had 16 gleaming white steamers on the Willamette and ran steamboats to Eugene until 1916.

In 1861, the rush to Idaho improved traffic on the Columbia with the Oregon Steam Navigation Co.  carrying about 10,500 passengers in 1861, 36,000 just three years later. Steamboats carried gold from Lewiston, Idaho, down the Columbia to Portland, where ocean steamships hurried it to San Francisco. At each stage, a Wells Fargo messenger was aboard. From 1863 to 1867, Wells Fargo annually transported about 5 million dollars of gold out of Oregon and Idaho; from 1877 to 1879, Wells Fargo annually shipped 7 million dollars in gold.

By the time gold mining dwindled, wheat grown in the fertile soils of eastern Oregon became a "golden" substitute. Wheat, bran and other farm products also were transported from Willamette Valley towns to Portland for shipping to California, the East Coast, the Columbia Plateau , and even Europe. This later "gold" strike helped Portland maintain its position as the dominant shipping center in the Pacific Northwest to the end of the 19th century.

Posted by Steve at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Agriculture, Bran, Farmers, Gold, Misc, Museums, Railroads, Steamers, Wells Fargo Bank, Wheat

Just had a thought after getting the afternoon Tully's  / Starbucks  / Caribou  (pick yer chain!). Like everything under the sun, referring to coffee by brand name is not new.

One research question I fielded many years ago was asking about a line in a Western novel, about "going to town to get some Arbuckle." The Dictionary of Western Terms in our library enlightened me about the Arbuckle Coffee Co. , which had a good business supplying chuck wagons .

Our Archive Collection now includes a few of Arbuckles' advertising cards, which showed maps and scenes of different Western states. We've used them to illustrate the exhibit in Helena, Mont. You can also find other Arbuckle stuff on eBay  or in antiques stores.

Posted by Charles at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Found in Coffee, Gold, Misc, Museums, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank, Westerns

Today—July 13, 2007—marks 155 years to the date that Wells, Fargo, and Co. opened for business on Montgomery Street in San Francisco. The Corporate Archives is lucky enough to have a picture that documents the event. Ten gentlemen posed in front of a two-story building.

Many are surprised to learn Henry Wells and William G. Fargo are not in the first office picture; they remained back in New York and only received updates via letters and rare visits. We know the names of two gentlemen who worked in that office on opening day, Reuben W. Washburn and Samuel W. Carter. The rest are critical contributors to the story of July 13, but unknown to later generations.

Check out the "Wells Fargo Through the Decades" slide show, and watch for three of my favorite images:

• Five women agents smiling in front of a San Diego office in 1917
• Members of the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank Club, enjoying a day at Spring Valley Lakes in June of 1921
• The Wells Belles of 1973; ready to defend the name of Wells Fargo through baseball.

They are all part of the fabric of the larger Wells Fargo story and, if not for a remaining image in our archives, nearly lost to posterity.

That brings me to today. We are having festivities in many Wells Fargo locations, including the San Francisco History Museum. Most of the everyday activities of life will not make it into the history books. But, just like those unknown faces in the first office picture, what you do today is making history.

Posted by Anne at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Found in Artifacts, At Work, Baseball, Events, Films, Holidays, Movies, Museums, Participate, Photographs, Remember, San Francisco, Wells Fargo Bank

Fresh from orchard, field and vineyard is the farmer's goal.

With migration west , and expansion of the railroads  in the 19th century, new cities, ranches and farming communities sprang up in America. Postal and express operations, such as Wells Fargo & Co., stood ready with fast services. From a handful of offices in 1852, Wells Fargo grew to become the nation's first transcontinental express company in 1888, and had 10,000 offices thereafter.

From the beginning, Wells Fargo forwarded agricultural goods of all types. When rail service began in California in the 1850s, shipments of vegetables and potted flowers were aboard. In 1862, Wells Fargo carried 200,000 specimens of Europe's best vineyard stocks to new wine regions  in Napa, Sonoma and Anaheim, Calif.

Wells Fargo contributed to agriculture by encouraging grower cooperatives , adoption of standard packing methods, and by shipping tools and seed. There are instances of Wells Fargo delivering livestock, trees and even ladybugs for pest control . In cooperation with growers and agricultural communities, local agents marketed produce through promotions such as "California Orange Day."

Wells Fargo's "Order Commission and Food Products Department" issued bulletins detailing how to order fruits and vegetables and have them delivered fresh, canned or glazed. The company's fleet of refrigerated rail cars (from the 1890s) carried fish, oysters, poultry and dairy products as well as fruits and vegetables. Fast express cut prices and increased variety and availability. Wells Fargo called attention to products among consumers through shipping specials, banners and office displays.

It was as simple as walking into the local Wells Fargo office and placing an order. Oranges, asparagus or strawberries came to your door in a very short time. The concept of fresh citrus fruit in the dead of a New England, Midwest or Rocky Mountain winter is significant: In a relatively short time, the express business helped broaden the American diet.

Posted by Charles at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Agriculture, Farmers, Misc, Railroads, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank

In the 19th century, roads were rough and railroad tracks were sparse. Steamships provided vital transportation of passengers and goods up and down the West Coast.

Regular steamers departed San Francisco south for Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Pedro, Anaheim Landing, San Diego and ports in Mexico and Central America. Northbound steamers called at Crescent City, Astoria, Portland and Victoria, British Columbia. In 1870, the steamer journey from San Francisco to San Pedro (the harbor serving Los Angeles) took 48 hours. In comparison, traveling to the same destination  by rail and stagecoach took 60 hours.

Wells Fargo express messengers sailed aboard these coastal steamers, guarding the mail, gold and valuable packages. Once underway, messengers inventoried express items and checked shipping documents and waybills. They sorted letters and business documents for immediate delivery. Messengers inspected sealed containers of gold dust and bullion to prevent tampering.

Wells Fargo's most well-known steamer messenger on the coastal route was Pilsbury "Chips" Hodgkins, who over his long career escorted millions of dollars in gold and money. Chips earned his nickname as a ship's carpenter  on the way to the California gold rush. Chips escorted Wells Fargo's treasure boxes from the mining camps to the inland port of Stockton, to San Francisco, and up and down the coast. In 1871 Chips' steamer dropped anchor at San Pedro Harbor in Southern California in the midst of a gale. Undaunted by heavy seas, Chips rowed ashore in a small boat to deliver the consignments on time.

For his long service, Chips was rewarded with a banquet and miniature treasure box made of silver. Chips Hodgkins worked for Wells Fargo for more than 25 years. In all that time, through all those voyages, he never lost a penny.

Posted by Charles at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Gold, Misc, Remember, San Francisco, Steamers, Wells Fargo Bank

The history of the American West  is a changing field, which makes sense if you follow the history of the environmental West. That is directly concerned with the changes in landscape from human actions. But the West as history has several interesting dimensions.

First, the West is a place that is hard to accurately plot: Minnesota was way out there in the 1830s. Daniel Boone  made a name for himself leading pioneers West—to Kentucky. St. Jo  was the edge of the earth for most Americans in the 1840s and California was, well, another country entirely, seen only by sailors as a sort of high seas rest stop. California and the Pacific Northwest have their own coastal distinction, and Texas is it's own thing entirely. But all are the West. Count in the Dakotas and the Great Plains, too. And how many of you thought of Nebraska as the West?

Western historians have been arguing for a generation about where the West "begins." One operating consensus is the 100th Meridian , which marks the western reach of moist air. (See also the contentious 98th Meridian .) Westward from there, agriculture relies heavily on irrigation.

After the Civil War, industry in the United States developed rapidly. Corporations, transportation and technologies moved people westward, along with their schemes for getting rich. The West urbanized rather quickly due to the huge migration. The "wide-open spaces" of our national myth is in truth the most urbanized region , and much of the expanse is federally controlled land or possessed by large-scale resource extraction—mining, agriculture, water projects, etc.

The West has experienced the effects of several layers of people and cultures. Effects as real as layers of geography in shaping the region. Humans apparently arrived in the West  between 10,000 and more than 40,000 years ago, following megafauna . These people evolved across the continent; there was a great variety of cultures when Europeans arrived. The West had indigenous empires, French mountain men, British trading outposts, Russian forts, and flourishing Spanish and Mexican colonies. Anglo and African American populations of the United States pressed west from the original colonies. The California Gold Rush  brought the whole dang world to the West. Asian populations crossed the Pacific to the Wild, Wild East.

Many people still imagine the West as a mythic thing, a point in fancy where white men ride tall and silent, women long to serve them, and diverse peoples don't exist unless they're outlaws or corrupt officials. But it ain't so and, frankly, never was. Even Western stories have changed, from simplistic cowboy heroes on the silver screen to the trenchant cowboy fiction of Cormac McCarthy . The West is still in transition because it's a vital, changing place.

Posted by Charles at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Found in Animals, Experts, Hollywood, Latin America, Misc, Movies, Perspective, Remember, Westerns

Found this in the archives. It is Silver City, Idaho, and there's a band on Wells Fargo's deck.

There's probably a good reason for it—notice the building houses a photograph gallery. Meaning, a photographer trying to find a "hit" shot that will sell his work. In them days  (1880s), photographers were in the portrait biz, but the technology was improving. It was possible to start doing the photography we know today—find a subject and take a picture.

If you found a good shot, a nice picture resulted. A nice picture is something we all want to look at, so an admirer might hang it on the wall. Voila! Photography as art form . And Wells Fargo is, uh, on the ground floor of the innovation.

Another possibility is "The Music Man"  factor. Some guy actually pulled off the Harold Hill  caper, sold a bunch of instruments and uniforms to the excited folks in Silver City, and got this pic to use in the next town. Just a thought ...

If there are better explanations out there, let me have 'em. The zanier the better.

Posted by Charles at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in Artifacts, Films, Hollywood, Misc, Movies, Photographs, Remember, The Music Man, Wells Fargo Bank

Posted by Charles at 03:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Found in Fourth of July, Holidays, Independence Day, Participate, Photographs, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank