Wells Fargo has been musically inclined since the Gold Rush. In 1855, we advanced money for an Italian opera troupe. However they defaulted, so we seized their trunk of costumes and musical instruments as security.

Actually, we are really kind hearted. In 1869, Madame Camilla Urso   proposed a music festival to benefit the Mercantile Library, featuring school children and musicians from around California and Nevada. Wells Fargo offered to carry sheet music, letters, and other equipment far and wide throughout its lines on the Pacific Coast for free. The successful San Francisco festival ran for five days in February 1870.

If it could be sent by express, Wells Fargo carried it. In May of 1860, a future jazz musician in Columbia asked Wells Fargo to supply copies of Schatzman's Sax Horn Instructor. Up they came from San Francisco.

On occasion, Wells Fargo contributed to the Big Bang Theory  . Mariposa agent Julia Jones delivered a bass drum to complete a brass band at Whitlock's Gold Mine . In the spring of 1897, this band, splendid in their white uniforms, serenaded Mariposans with "Old Folks at Home," "The Man in the Moon," and the "Young Bandsman."

In the summer of 1917, Wells Fargo also carried "several valuable violin bows from Colorado Springs to Chicago. Accompanying these bows in a handsome, sturdy, brass-bound packing case were also a few violins – one made by Nicola Amati   in 1662, another by Carlo Bergonzi   in 1723, and a third, modern one produced by Joseph Guarnerius   in 1731.

Wells Fargo starred in the performance of express service. Meredith Willson drew on his boyhood memories in Iowa to write The Music Man  . That story revolves around the arrival of band instruments on the "Wells Fargo Wagon." The whole town turns out to sing: "O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is-a comin' down the street, Oh, Please let it be for me!"

Our relations with opera singers improved through the years — we even starred in an opera. In 1910, when Puccini's Gold Rush opera The Girl of the Golden West   appeared, Wells Fargo's agent was heroic.

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Found in Artifacts, Branding, Broadway, Gold, Hollywood, Misc, Movies, Music, Opera, Perspective, Remember, San Francisco, The Music Man, Wells Fargo Bank, Westerns

Wells Fargo's role in the history of the West  was a heroic story—frontier, stagecoaching over lonely roads, bandits. The lore fit easily into Hollywood  storytelling. Wells Fargo not only starred in Hollywood films, it helped ensure the popularity of motion pictures in the industry's early days.

In 1855, Wells Fargo opened an office in Los Angeles. As Southern California grew rapidly after 1880, Pacific Electric streetcars  brought Wells Fargo express services to nearly every community. Wells Fargo Express delivered feature films and newsreels to eager audiences nationwide from the company's special express depot in Universal City.

In 1937, Paramount Pictures  produced "Wells Fargo," a Western starring Joel McCrea and Frances Dee. The "Wells Fargo Wagon" brought something special to River City, Iowa, a generation later, in the 1962 film version of Meredith Willson's Broadway hit "The Music Man." 

On television from 1957 to 1962, Dale Robertson fought hard to uphold Wells Fargo's good name in the series "Tales of Wells Fargo." The popular show reached audiences worldwide through syndication.

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Found in Artifacts, Broadway, Films, Movies, Perspective, Remember, Stagecoach, The Music Man, Wells Fargo Bank, Westerns