In November 1916, the Wells Fargo Messenger reported on the Company's new operations in the Philippines. The office of Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express was at 25 and 26 Calle David, Manila, just off the Escolta 
— "Manila's Broadway" at the time.
Wells Fargo had offices in the Philippines since 1902. The archipelago , along with other Pacific and Carribbean countries, was annexed by the United States after war with Spain in 1898. Flush with patriotic and imperial zeal, American business established itself in these new territories.
Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express was excited to be an important part of Pacific commerce. The Messenger report was written by George A. O'Brien, Wells Fargo's "Foreign Manager for the Orient." Images showed a bustling Escolta, with ox carts, horse-drawn traffic, automobiles and a trolley.
O'Brien noted the energy of local people, and their interest in all things Western.Of course, it's hard to know what resistance O'Brien met, or how much indifference he may have noticed. He confined his explorations to a view from the Manila office and a scan of reports on local facilities.From that vantage, business was good in the Philippines.
"When one comes to consider freight," O'Brien writes, "he begins to wonder just what traffic would naturally move by Wells Fargo from the Philippines. It does not take much imagination to realize what goods our company will carry from the horne country to its far eastern possessions." The US was in it's full industrial adolescence —impulsive and energetic. "For the return trip, however," he pondered, "the Philippines offer many express possibilities. For instance, there is the cigar business." O'Brien also suggested produce, poultry, eggs and fish.
"And then there is the embroidery traffic,"O'Brien noted. In that period, embroidery was a coming industry in the islands. It was a household industry, fostered by the government. And since the start of World War I two years earlier, the embroidery supply from Europe was cut off and dealers turned to the Philippines. Uncle Sam's Far East possessions, wrested by war a generation earlier, became an opportunity for trade with new war-torn markets.
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