When Henry Wells established Wells College for women in 1869, his purpose was clear: "Give her the opportunity!" he thundered.

Wells Fargo has a long history of hiring women, echoing founder Henry Wells' words. The Company's first female agent was Mary Taggart, who ran the Wells Fargo office in Palmyra, Nebraska, in 1873.

Many of Wells Fargo's 350 female agents across the nation held other jobs as well. In Roseville, California, Cassie Hill had three: Wells Fargo agent, railroad agent and telegrapher at the busy rail junction. All the while, she raised five children on her own. Julia Jones, agent at Mariposa, California, was elected county superintendent of schools — although she herself was not allowed vote!

Hundreds more women worked at Wells Fargo's headquarters as auditors, clerks, advertising copywriters, stenographers and telephone operators. Anchoring its modern-day commitment to women and minority-owned businesses, Wells Fargo historically partnered with woman-owned businesses and counted many women among its valued customers as well.

Today, two-thirds of bank employees are women.

"Here's to the Wells Fargo woman on the job. May she sustain all the fine traditions of our honorable company!"

Wells Fargo agent in Roseville, California, from 1884 to 1908, Cassie Hill became agent after her husband’s sudden death. She invested in the Roseville businesses and real estate, and enjoyed driving one of Roseville’s first automobiles.

Marie F. Putnam was the only woman among 300 employees of the Abbot-Downing Co., makers of the famous Concord Stagecoaches. From 1865 to 1895, Putnam stitched leather for every stagecoach that rolled out of the Concord, New Hampshire factory—including those bought by Wells Fargo & Company.

At the age of 14, Delia Haskett Rawson was the first girl stage driver—and maybe the youngest—ever to carry the U.S. mail in California. She was the only woman to ever belong to the Pioneer Stage Drivers of California and served as its vice president.

Tilla Patterson was Wells Fargo Agent at Winchester, California from 1892 to 1910. From the depot, Patterson also served as Santa Fe Railroad agent and the Western Union telegraph operator. Agent Patterson used her business connections to help build the collection of the county library where she volunteered.

Florence Scott earned her medical degree from the University of California, and in 1922 was asked to provide medical exams and emergency care for the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank in downtown San Francisco. This began the Bank's program of company-paid health care.

Julia Lois Jones succeeded her sister, Lucy Jones Miller, as agent at Mariposa, California. The two sisters ran that Wells Fargo office for over 25 years. Lucy was also postmaster while Julia served three terms as Superintendent of Schools.

When Uncle Sam called Wells Fargo's Winona, Minnesota Agent to serve in World War I, Mrs. Evangeline Sawyer patriotically filled in until he returned. Sawyer's efforts earned high praise from the regional superintendent.

A preacher’s daughter whose family settled in southern Minnesota, Lillie Predmore served as Wells Fargo’s express agent in the town that bore her family’s name. Her younger sister, Mrs. Freda Kester, succeeded her in 1914.

In the mid-1970s, Audrey Strand became Wells Fargo's first woman "special agent" — a designation bestowed on the likes of James B. Hume, the one who brought Black Bart to justice. Her responsibility was to report "embezzlement, irregularities and mysterious disappearances" to the FBI, Controller of Currency and the U.S. Attorney.

In 1960, Wells Fargo expanded from to a network of bank branches throughout Northern California. New computer technologies were introduced to handle the booming business: Janet Wright managed the engineers and technicians. For her effective work, Wright ecame the first woman Assistant Vice President at Wells Fargo in 1964.

A rancher in Livermore, California, Virginia Fellingham drove stagecoaches for Wells Fargo Bank for over thirty years in the 20th Century. She and her family have appeared in hundreds of parades and civic events.

Posted by Charles at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Found in Misc, Perspective, Railroads, Remember, Stagecoach, Wells Fargo Bank, Women's History

In September of 1858, stagecoaches left St. Louis and San Francisco on their way to San Francisco and St. Louis, respectively. The Overland Mail Company  was on the road.

Here's the story of the OMC in a nutshell.

John Butterfield wanted to land the government contract to carry the US Mail to the untamed West. The government was offering 600,000 bucks to whoever could get mail from the Missouri frontier to California, across all the deserts and mountains and lack of facilities, and guarantee its safety and efficiency. Butterfield figured the best method was to carry passengers as well, whose fares would help offset costs.

Anybody who was intelligent in those days knew that the undertaking was crazy. The route took a southerly arc to avoid mountains, but got deserts in exchange. The route had unpredictable weather and geographic hazards, was unpaved and even uncharted in some places. All this meant that the person who wanted to try to get that fat contract had to be a little crazy themselves. In other words, an entrepreneur.

And that was Butterfield , to be sure.

Entrepreneurs  with big vision and willing to risk everything need the sort of backers who are intelligent and willing to risk some. Butterfield was able to gather several Directors for his Company, including Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, whose Express Company in the West was growing fast. The two operations would complement each other, on paper at least, as long as things went smoothly.

Things did go smoothly, albeit at great expense, for about three years. But that's another story...

So the Stagecoaches rolled and regular overland business commenced. The three-week (or so) journey shortened the time it had formerly taken between Missouri and California terminals. By ship , or the lumbering routes by wagon train , it had taken as long as six months. Of course, it cost a lot to ride: $300 in those days is equivalent to thousands  now.

But what a view!

Posted by Charles at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Found in Branding, Gold, Misc, Remember, Ride sharing, Stagecoach, Transportation, Travel, Wells Fargo Bank

Here's a video piece about George Monroe, the celebrated stagecoach driver we wrote about the other day! It's from a video Wells Fargo made a few years ago on our history, "Since 1852: The Universal Friend and Agent."

The piece is short, but it's vid which is über  hip. Welcome to Guided By History, progressive in all ways...

Share your story with us!

Posted by Charles at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in African American History, Misc, Remember, Stagecoach, Transportation, Travel, Wells Fargo Bank

Whenever visitors enter a Wells Fargo History Museum, they are inevitably drawn the Concord Stagecoach. Most are disbelieving when they hear that 18 passengers were packed in and on top of the coach, and their curiosity only grows when they hear about the dangers of the untamed West: no paved roads and the closest thing to a fast food restaurant being a pot of slumgullion  boiling over a smoky fire...

In today's society, travel is all about speed and comfort. Nine times out of ten, you will see travelers in an airport wearing ensembles more closely resembling pajamas than day wear. Although this seems like quite a leap from the attire donned by travelers 150 years ago , taking a look back reveals that there were a few brave souls who attempted to make the arduous journey westward a bit more comfortable.

There were many ways to travel across the western territories and all of them were uncomfortable. They were even more difficult for women, who were hampered by layers of petticoats and full-length dresses. Most travelers were poor enough that walking was their only option. Imagine arriving in California wearing the same clothes in which you left home a year before. Even if you were part of a wagon train and had room for clothes in your luggage, you would have spent most of your time walking alongside the wagons. Fording streams, hiking muddy trails, and climbing through mountain passes in a full skirt would be frustrating and slow.

In response, Elizabeth Smith Miller  invented the "Bloomer Costume"  in 1850, as an alternative to the unwieldy traditional dress of the day. The costume consisted of a short skirt that was paired with "Turkish Trousers" . It was named after Amelia Bloomer , a well known women's rights leader at the time. Bloomer also made the new costume famous in her paper, "The Lily."  Besides being advertised in Bloomer's paper, the costume was the subject of much attention, both positive and negative, in many newspapers, as well as journal, and diary entries of the period.

The Oregon Statesman  observed the stir caused by this new fashion in their September 2, 1852 edition:

The "Bloomers" in Oregon
A couple of our down town ladies appeared in the Bloomer costume (short dress and trousers) one day last week. We was not "there to see," but we understand the demonstration created an intense excitement in that quarter.

Francis Sawyer, on her overland journey to California in 1852, observed a family in which "The daughter is dressed in a bloomer-costume—pants, short skirt and red-top boots. I think it is a very appropriate dress for a trip like this. So many ladies wear it, that I almost wish that I was so attired myself."

Although they were sometimes greeted with scoffs and unmannerly comments, the women  who chose to wear the bloomers touted their practicality. Mariett Foster Cummings wrote in her diary, "In passing one house the women came out and laughed at me and my dress, I did not ask which, but find it much more convenient for traveling than a long one."

Although the practicality of the suit made it popular among a few women, pants of any kind were not really acceptable socially (excepting athletics like bicycling) until the 1930s. In fact, the term "Bloomer" not only described the costume, but also came to be used to describe the daring women who wore it.

Posted by Melissa at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Found in Misc, Perspective, Remember, Stagecoach, Transportation, Wells Fargo Bank

Robberies of treasure carried by Wells Fargo Express aboard stagecoaches, unfortunately did take place. But Wells Fargo's crack detective force pursued the bandits with cold calculation and didn't stop pursuing till they netted the bad guys and locked them away. The legend "Wells Fargo Never Forgets" is the single best artifact from those years.

The town of Umatilla, Oregon  is nestled on the Columbia River  about three hours east of Portland. On October 21st, 1875, six miles outside of Umatilla, two men robbed the stagecoach from Boise City  and made off with gold from the Idaho mines .

Wells Fargo's detective force immediately sprang into action. Portland's Special Agent H. C. Paige sent a telegram to John J. Valentine, General Superintendent of Wells Fargo, to inform him that the extent of loss was unknown — but agents were in pursuit of the robbers. On October 29th, Paige wrote a letter to Valentine from Baker City , reporting a loss of up to $4,000, based upon the value of the gold listed on the manifest. Once the loss was known, Paige distributed a reward poster .

At first, Paige went after a red-headed fellow he had been suspicious of, based on a comb with red hairs found at the crime scene. A nearby hotel keeper confirmed the comb belonged to the suspect. On November 5th, Paige wrote Valentine from Pendleton . Two other suspects had confessed to the robbery and were in custody.

Paige had solved the case.

There is more about Wells Fargo's detective force at the Portland Museum. Our new exhibit, "Crime Scene Investigation: Officers in Pursuit," officially opened on January 16th. Check it out!

Posted by Steve at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Found in Artifacts, At Work, Crime, Experts, First-hand Accounts, Misc, Museums, Perspective, Remember, Stagecoach, Wells Fargo Bank

As I wrote last week, and as you see here, I got a new banker's uniform. Here at the Wells Fargo Museum in Old Sacramento, we give tours and dress in the style of the era. My pocket watch gave my get-up a classic finish. It also got me thinking about watches Wells Fargo presented in recognition of heroic work. I told the story of Aaron Y. Ross, but another man comes to mind.

James Wales Miller was a stagecoach driver. While on his route one day he outran would-be stagecoach robbers and saved the Wells Fargo treasure box. Miller was asked what he wanted for his valor and he responded;

"A dame big bullion watch."

And that’s what Miller got. Wells Fargo presented Miller a silver watch and chain that together weighed approximately two and one-half pounds. The watch alone was approximately three inches in circumference, and one inch wide.

Although such watches as Ross's and Miller's were presented for valor, heroism was not the only reason to Wells Fargo bestowed watches. Non-employees who helped the company were presented with these exclusive watches on occasion. Thomas W. Davies was one such man. A treasure box was dropped from a stagecoach near San Diego, "carrying 10,000 worth in gold from the Golden Chariot Mine ." Davies found and returned the treasure box to Wells Fargo—intact. Superintendent John J. Valentine sent Davies a presentation watch with an inscription that read:

"As recognition of his integrity in protecting and restoring the Treasure Box, with valuable contents, lost from the Julian City Stage , near San Diego, October 1, 1873."

The loyalty, courage and honesty these men showed paid off for them in the end. Wells Fargo appreciated their integrity, and presented them with some of the finest watches of the time.

Posted by Greg at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Found in Artifacts, At Work, Crime, Gold, Misc, Museums, Perspective, Photographs, Remember, Sacramento, Stagecoach, Wells Fargo Bank

Last weekend, Wells Fargo Historians "horsed around" in the San Francisco History Museum, decorating the premises for the Season. Holiday decorations included a stagecoach full of horses—especially Maggies. Maggie is the eighth limited edition Wells Fargo Plush Pony since 2003. Her real life counterpart represented Wells Fargo in San Francisco's Work Horse Parade in 1909. Now, there are Maggies all over, and inside, the stagecoach.

(And check out the "Make Maggie a Happy Pony!" game. There's also Maggie's pdf Activity book, in spanish as well as english.)

In the Days of Old and the Days of Gold, Wells Fargo moved by horsepower: Wells Fargo stagecoaches were pulled by four or six horses."Horses are the pride of Wells Fargo service," the company declared. "Our most faithful employee and friend"—nicely groomed, harnesses oiled, brass fittings polished, and hitched in matched pairs—was Wells Fargo's best advertisement.

Driving the authentic Concord coach in the Museum is Trixie, originally a paint  from Ardmore, Oklahoma , who prefers to get where she is going sooner rather than later. By her side is an equally large Trixie, riding shotgun. She arrived inWells Fargo's stable of Plush Ponies for the 2005 holiday season.

"Wheelers,"  the big muscular horses closest to the coach, are real Princes. The collectible Plush Pony named for Prince, also from Ardmore, appeared in 2006. Our wheelers are a pair of matched grays , 5 and a half feet long and 11 hands high  in horse talk.

This year, the two Princes got hitched. The blushing brides are two agile Maggies, 5 feet long and 10 and a half hands high. Being smart, they are the pair of leader horses. And yes, the hitching is proper. Just like on Wells Fargo's Overland Stagecoaches of the 1860s, the ribbons go where they should, allowing Trixie to turn Prince and Maggie to the left or right as needed.

(If you're wondering if you can purchase these and how much they cost, the answer is—sorry, you can't. They are not available for sale.)

If you are in downtown San Francisco, come by to see an authentic 4-horse hitch. Say "Hi" to Trixie, Prince, and Maggie—and as a memento, take home a little Maggie from the Museum Store!

Posted by Bob at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Found in Animals, At Work, Christmas, Holidays, Misc, Museums, Pony Express, San Francisco, Stagecoach, Wells Fargo Bank

On April 15, 1868 (a Wednesday if you're keeping track), a crowd gathered at the Abbot-Downing factory  in Concord, New Hampshire. A special steam engine pulled in to lead fifteen flatcars and four boxcars. These cars were loaded with the largest stagecoach order ever—a proud fleet of 30 elegant coaches, bound for Wells, Fargo and Co.'s stagecoach empire, the Great Overland Mail.

Our San Diego museum features one of the 30 coaches from this order. The four box cars at the end of the train, incidentally, carried harnesses for the horses waiting at the destination to pull the stagecoaches. There is a trunk in the San Diego museum made by the same harness-maker who supplied the shipment.

When the Pembroke engine steamed into Omaha, Nebraska  a week later, Wells Fargo agents and teams of horses were there to welcome the shipment.

The stagecoaches went into service right away, carrying packages and passengers across thousands of miles: Nevada to Wyoming, south to Denver's high mountains , north into the Montana and Idaho wilderness .

Stagecoaches had to be suitable for rugged trips like these. Wells Fargo specified details like "extra roomy inside," as well as:

Iron work to be extra stout; [thorough]braces 31/4 wide &; 13/8 thick stout stitched; Bodies made roomy inside &; 3 in. more room between back &; middle seats; candle lamps extra large size.

Skilled Abbot-Downing craftsmen shaped iron, leather, and oak, ash, and elm, to construct the vehicles.

A finished coach weighed 2,223 pounds and cost $2,500 . A deluxe paint job was an extra $20, and fancy lanterns another $7. Coaches seated eighteen people: nine inside and nine more on top, including the driver and shotgun messenger. Upholstered in leather and damask cloth, painted red and yellow and finished with a landscape on each door, the Concord Coach was one of the marvels of American craftsmanship .

Posted by Charles at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Found in Artifacts, Misc, Museums, Remember, Stagecoach, Transportation, Travel, Wells Fargo Bank

Through December 22, Wells Fargo is running a contest  where you can submit your own music video of the song, "The Wells Fargo Wagon" from The Music Man  and you can win excellent prizes. In support of this contest — and in support of our Guided By History community — we got Steve Greenwood, curator of the Wells Fargo Museum in Portland, to write the definitive history of the Wells Fargo Wagon. OK, maybe not definitive. But a darn good one, anyway! (CR)

100 years ago, Americans depended on horse-drawn vehicles  to move a variety of goods around town, including ice  and ice cream , beer  and of course, Express packages.

With Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express, shipments arrived in communities by stagecoach, steamship, or railroad. Express messengers delivered items to their final destination aboard wagons pulled by one or two horses. The famed Wells Fargo Wagon delivered goods of all sorts, from a grey mackinaw to some grapefruit from Tampa, as the song goes . The Wells Fargo wagon even delivered when a snow storm blanketed Salem, Oregon — the crew simply replaced the wagon wheels with sled runners.

Drivers were also alert for outgoing express. Instructions to drivers stated, "Wagonmen should never drive by call cards, but should stop and secure the shipment." The red and blue diamond-shaped signs were familiar across the U.S. and became a Wells Fargo logo.

Wells Fargo has been a financial services company from the very beginning. But the lore of the Company and its central role in the growth of the nation is tied to transportation—stagecoach, railroad, Pony Express. The Wells Fargo wagon was a common sight on American streets as communities grew. It meant excitement, as the song demonstrates, because it brought goods from faraway places, helped businesses get the tools and money they needed, and tied local neighborhoods to world markets.

Posted by Steve at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Artifacts, Branding, Misc, Music, Photographs, Remember, Stagecoach, The Music Man, Transportation, Wells Fargo Bank

Yesterday, Pandiux wrote, "I have a question. Is there any stories in history of a Wells Fargo Stagecoach being robbed?" The answer is yes, there are several. I blogged about one here.

But we at Wells Fargo don't get all excited about robbery in history as many people do . The reason is simple: We're a bank, and banks are prime targets for robbers. Robbery is dangerous, terrifying and violent even when people aren't hurt. Wells Fargo is committed to a heritage of enforcement and protection and of throwing the creeps in jail – not the lore of the fearless bandit.

The heck with those guys. They are thugs.

I served on a jury several years ago, hearing a bank robbery case (I told 'em I worked at a bank and they picked me anyway). The main witness was the teller, of course, and she was still unnerved by the experience after several months. Robbery is crime against people I work with. No glamor in terrorizing people. I myself am not interested in spinning yarns about those darn bandits of yore. They're robbers and there's nothing cool about it.

So we don't focus too much on robbery narratives except to support the Company's drive to catch the bad guys. Many Western buffs are really into lawmen and bad men, guns and violence. Knock yourselves out, but you won't keep my interest.

Robbers sometimes kill people. It still happens .

Posted by Charles at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Found in At Work, Crime, Misc, Museums, Remember, San Francisco, Stagecoach, Wells Fargo Bank, Westerns

History is never as neat and simple as you would like it to be. Right now, sitting in my office, I have the grave site marker of Silas St. John . How it got to be in my office and how Wells Fargo is trying to return it to its rightful place in the world is worthy of a book rather than a post.

Cutting to the bone, an amateur historian brought the story of St. John  to me and explained how this pilfered grave-marker bronze, cast by the famous artist Donal Hord , had come to reside at the San Diego Historical Society. Wouldn't we like to see it back where it belonged, seeing that it was Wells Fargo that had sponsored the bronze honoring St. John in the first place in 1942? And BTW, it just so happens to be the 150th anniversary of the first transcontinental express shipment—in which St. John played an integral part.

Problem: St. John was never a Wells Fargo employee—even though the bronze says he was.

Yet he was an honest-to-goodness historical character of note. And regardless of how you might feel about him, you have to admit a man deserves the grave he was meant to have . The solution as it stands is that we will indeed publicize the restoration of this important piece of art and mention the truth of the story with hat held politely in hand. Old Town State Park in San Diego  will allow us to tell the story at its celebration of the first Overland Mail on Sept. 1. This also gives us the opportunity to take a historical artifact out of a dark archive and place it back into the public experience. The Overland Mail is intimately associated with Wells Fargo's history, a historical fact that resonates among our customers.

Posted by Allan at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Artifacts, Misc, Museums, Perspective, Remember, San Diego, Stagecoach, Transportation, Wells Fargo Bank

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

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.

Posted by Charles at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Artifacts, Broadway, Films, Movies, Perspective, Remember, Stagecoach, The Music Man, Wells Fargo Bank, Westerns

There are a lot of folks who don't know about Betsy Ross  and a lot of folks who think that she did or didn't make the first star-spangled banner. Without recapitulating my thesis, let me just say that whether or not she made the first flag isn't really that interesting to historians of the flag, like Cecilia O'Leary  or Scot M. Guenter.  They'd rather focus on why the flag is paradoxical or problematic symbolism. It's a Historian's job to complicate things.

Most folks think that the Ross story is just a pleasant American myth a la George Washington's "I cannot tell a lie." In 2005 a rather substantial historian, David Brion Davis  wrote a book about the evolution of American symbols of freedom. He took up the Ross story and, much to my pleasant surprise, cited most of the points I cited in my thesis about the possibility of the former Elizabeth Griscom   actually making a flag for our fledgling nation. Hooray, I guess.

As for our stagecoach program, the truth of its existence and providence is much clearer. The first stagecoach "event" occurred on June 14th, 1958 in Hayward, Cal. when "Sport" Fellingham was asked to drive a coach pulled by a team of horses to commemorate the opening of the branch. In 2007 we expect the stagecoach appearance program to encompass something like 900 events which will be seen by literally millions of people. 2007 also marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the transcontinental stagecoach express business. And 2008 will be the 150th anniversary of the famed Butterfield Overland Mail  which Wells Fargo eventually made nearly synonymous with our own Express business.

Now if somebody out there could just send me a picture of a Betsy Ross carrying a flag on a stagecoach...

Posted by Allan at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Found in Artifacts, Branding, Museums, Remember, Stagecoach, Wells Fargo Bank

Portland, Ore.celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Rose Festival   this past weekend. The idea of a Rose Festival or "carnival," as it was initially called, came from the Chamber of Commerce.  Later records reveal the extent to which the Chamber of Commerce went to promote the city of Portland. In the Second Annual Rose Festival Pamphlet from1908, the Chamber provided a litany of facts to persuade the visitor that Portland was the best place to live. It sums up this idea by stating:

"The approaching Rose Festival will .. convince tens of thousands of visitors that Portland and vicinity rests on beds of flowers... "

After the first Rose Festival in 1907, the event became extensive. Advertisers played off the event, and the Oregonian  included at least two cartoons hailing the event. One cartoon conveys the idea that the Portland Rose Festival was a signature event with "Old Man Portland" blowing away the competition. Another cartoon shows Western cities "joining hands" to celebrate Portland’s Festival. The Rose Festival received delegations from several cities, including Los Angeles, Pasadena, Oakland, Seattle, Spokane, and Tacoma. Naval vessels dropped anchor at Portland’s waterfront: the USS Stethem and others docked this year. 

Wells Fargo participated early on. As the Rose Festival got popular, the Company provided the Concord Coach from San Francisco  for the 1913 parade, and the “modern” Wells Fargo delivery wagon followed behind the stagecoach. It was as important, in1913, for Wells Fargo to showcase people from its history. The Oregonian described the esteemed personage riding in Wells Fargo’s contingent:

The Wells-Fargo stage coach filled with veterans of the stage coach days. On the front seat sat C. M. Kellogg, who drove a Wells-Fargo stage out of Salt Lake City in 1864 and 1865. . . Thomas H. Reynolds, who has been in the employ of Wells, Fargo & Co. for 40 years, acted as “shotgun messenger.” He rode on top of the coach, with a shotgun leveled across his knees. The regulation strong box stood beside him...

From an historical viewpoint, what is intriguing about Portland’s Rose Festival is how an idea took off, a “Rose Festival” culture developed, then gradually changed over time. After 1910, Portland’s economic status as the hub of the Pacific Northwest faced challenges from other cities—Tacoma, Spokane, and, most notably, Seattle. Was the creation of a Rose Festival one way for the city’s leaders to retain Portland’s economic hegemony in the Pacific Northwest? 

Posted by Steve at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in Branding, Events, First-hand Accounts, Museums, Remember, Stagecoach, Wells Fargo Bank

The gleam of diamonds from Queen Elizabeth II's  tiara has wowed all of Washington with Her Majesty’s royal presence.

On one of the reigning monarch's previous visits to North America  (as Princess Elizabeth in 1951), the future Queen Elizabeth II took a stagecoach ride at the Calgary Stampede  in Calgary, Alberta. This coach, now owned by Wells Fargo, is on display at our museum in Portland, Ore.

Coach #306, built by the Abbot-Downing Co. of Concord, N.H., in 1850, carried mail between Halifax and Pictou, Nova Scotia , until 1890. In 1860, it carried another British monarch: the Prince of Wales  (King Edward VII ), the current queen's great grandfather.

Posted by Marianne at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in Artifacts, Events, Museums, Perspective, Remember, Stagecoach, Wells Fargo Bank