It's a Thursday here at the Wells Fargo History Museum in downtown Minneapolis. Thursday means vegetables — just a block away from us to the north is the Nicollet Mall Farmer's Market , held on this day every week during the summer.

It's fitting that our visitors on Thursdays are often on their way to or from the Farmer's Market: Wells Fargo has a long history of being part of agricultural businesses here in Minnesota.

When Wells Fargo came to Minnesota, it was on the Great Northern Railroad, and then on the Chicago Great Western Railroad. Our agents handled shipments of both crops and livestock. We worked with small farm families and the huge mills  along the Mississippi River. Wells Fargo express cars carried packages to and from the University of Minnesota's School of Agriculture , which opened in 1888 . There is a long list of farm produce and equipment that Wells Fargo shipped to and from Minnesota, but my favorite item is a photo from MNHS   of a shipment of beer from different breweries, including August Schell's brewery  in New Ulm, Minn.

Today, Wells Fargo supports farmers in the Midwest and throughout the US with Agricultural Business Banking, as well as Agri-Business Insurance. Our ties to the farming community remain as strong now as they were in the 1800's, and you could say that those ties have borne a lot of fruit.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy some pure Minnesota-made maple syrup.