In 1852 Henry Wells and William Fargo founded Wells, Fargo & Co. to serve the West. The new company offered banking – buying gold, selling paper bank drafts as good as gold – and express – rapid delivery of the gold and anything else valuable. Wells Fargo opened for business in the gold rush port of San Francisco, and soon Wells Fargo’s agents opened offices in the other new cities and mining camps of the West.In the boom and bust economy of the 1850s, Wells Fargo earned a reputation of trust dealing rapidly and responsibly with people’s money. In the 1860s it earned everlasting fame–and its corporate symbol–with the grand adventure of the overland stagecoach line.
Wells Fargo sent its business by the fastest means possible: stagecoach, steamship, railroad, pony rider or telegraph. In 1858 Wells Fargo helped start the Overland Mail Company stageline, known as the “Butterfield” after O.M.C. president John Butterfield. In 1860, the O.M.C., now under Wells Fargo’s control, moved north to the central overland route–the route of the famed Pony Express.In 1861 the Wells Fargo-run O.M.C. took over operations of the western leg of the Pony. Wells Fargo continued printing stamps for and sending business by the Pony Express. But then the Overland Telegraph was completed, linking east and west with instant messages, and the Pony Express rode into history.
