On June 14, 1958, Wells Fargo Bank experimented with a new public relations idea. The bank arranged with Alfred D. "Sport" Fellingham to drive a borrowed mudwagon to the opening of Wells Fargo Bank's new office in Hayward, California . Sport Fellingham was a Livermore, California cattleman and director of the Livermore Rodeo . He borrowed the coach from the Rodeo Association, and the event was planned.

On the day of the first appearance, Sport supplied four Belgian horses  with complete harnesses, and two outriders . He delivered the full retinue with his own truck and trailer. The Stagecoach with Sport "up" (driving the team of 4 horses), outriders and two Buicks  paraded from the bank's temporary quarters and made their way to the new building. Aboard the coach with Sport were his eight-year-old son Paul and two bank officers. Dale Robertson , star of the popular TV series Tales of Wells Fargo  rode "shotgun" beside Sport.

The event was a complete success. Sport and the Stagecoach appeared in three more events that year, with more planned each year.

Sport Fellingham passed away in 1965, but the Fellingham family continued at the reins for the Stagecoach program. His wife, Virginia, took center stage, driving the first horse-drawn vehicle across the Golden Gate Bridge  and the stagecoach in President Nixon's 1972 Inaugural Parade . For over forty years, she presented the stagecoach to millions of people.

As more coaches joined the fleet and Wells Fargo's geography expanded, Sport and Virginia's daughter, Patsy, took the reins as well. And in 1975, Paul Fellingham drove his first Wells Fargo stagecoach at an event in Walnut Creek, California  — seventeen years after he rode with his father at that first Stagecoach Appearance Program event in Hayward. Since then, Paul has driven in hundreds of appearances.

As Wells Fargo's Stagecoach Appearance Program celebrates its 50th year in 2008, there are several factors in its long-term success. There is a human factor, a connection with every person who sees the coach and appreciates its symbol and its grace.

But the dearest factor is our long relationship with the Fellingham family, and the skill they deliver each and every time they take the reins.