Wells Fargo

One Sunday afternoon in October 1851, a certain Hubbs of Downieville was riding through the forests of the California gold country. Though he had some $400 in gold dust in his charge, Expressman Hubbs was unarmed. Presently, at the base of a large yellow pine, he dismounted to relieve himself. Suddenly a robber jumped from behind the tree, pinioned his arms, made off with the gold. Astonished, terrified, tangled in suspenders, Expressman Hubbs let him go without resistance.

That was the first recorded hold-up of a California expressman. It started an illustrious series, which as much as any other factor contributed to the astounding do-or-die spirit which characterized the growth of Far Western transport. Last week this spirit found fitting record in Treasure Express, Epic Days of the Wells Fargo, a lusty book by a San Francisco advertising man named Neill C. Wilson.*

Henry Wells and William George Fargo were two bearded New Yorkers who banded together in 1844 to combat the powerful express business of Boston's Alvin Adams. Before the fight had gone far, there came the Gold Rush of '49. To Daniel Hale Haskell, an Adams Express clerk, this was a great enticement, which soon led him off to start a California branch. In June 1852, Samuel P. Carter arrived in San Francisco to be general agent for Wells, Fargo & Co. There followed a rip-roaring battle between the two express companies. From it, Writer Wilson has neatly plucked the vivid incidents, paid little attention to dullish corporate detail.

Generally speaking, the hordes of men pouring into the wild country were interested in two things: gold and news from home. The transport of both at fabulous rates became the expressman's job./- That they go through, come hell or highwayman, became almost his religion. At first carried by foot, horse, skis, dogsled, rowboat or river steamer, the treasure and mail eventually rode almost exclusively in the famed Concord stages, the first of which reached San Francisco June 25,1850.

The stage was a potbellied, high-wheeled coach usually pulled by six horses. Inside were seats for nine, but as many as 35 persons were known to ride at a time. At first the driver was the only man in charge. Then, as the wave of highway robbery began, there was an armed guard as well. Both men were generally the highest type of western dare-devil--the driver invariably out to break the speed record; the guard ready to shoot it out with any number of bad men.

There was Three-Fingered Garcia, who could not resist yanking Chinese by their cues before slitting their throats; "Jack William's Ghost," who gave brandy to passengers while he took their riches; Tom Poole, Monterey undersheriff who went bad; Cochise the Apache and his raiding band and, greatest of all, Black Bart.

Black Bart was the name assumed by Charles E. Boles. Clad in a linen duster, with a flour sack over his head, he held up 28 stages, never shot anyone. At each holdup, he would leave a suitable stanza of not badly turned verse. Once he signed himself "The PO8" Before his final capture, he reached a reward value of $18,000 "dead or alive." When he got out of jail, Wells Fargo paid him $125 a month not to rob them any more.

Long before Black Bart's time, Wells Fargo was supreme in Western Express, Adams having gone under in financial collapse in 1855. Thereafter, Wells Fargo had only to contend with bandits, did so tooth & nail with great success. Then, with horrible suddenness, it succumbed to a group of bandits who held up, not the stages, but Wells Fargo itself.

Wells Fargo had found little trouble in getting its hands on Butterfield's Overland Mail line in 1861 or on its successor, the Pony Express. But in 1869 it was caught napping while the first transcontinental railroad pushed through. When Wells Fargo put in a bid for the rail express contract, it found that an upstart named Pacific Union Express already had it. Simultaneously, it discovered the same concern had beaten down Wells Fargo stock from $100 to $13, then bought in, acquired control. In 1872, following a vast shuffle of officers, Lloyd Tevis of San Francisco became president of Wells Fargo.

The railroad did not at once kill the old stage express. For 20 years more it did duty on minor routes, fighting highwaymen to the very end. Nor did the name Wells Fargo vanish with the last Concord. Today San Francisco's Wells Fargo Bank & Union Trust Co. is third largest in that city.

* Macmillan , $ 2.50 .

/- Samples: $16 per letter in 1849; $5 per half-ounce in 1860; $3 importation fee for adaguerreotype; $700 for transferring $10,000 from San Francisco to New York .

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.