WELLS, FARGO & COMPANY

either of two American companies involved in express transport and banking. The first company was founded on March 18, 1852, as a joint-stock company providing transportation and banking services initially between California and the eastern United States and later for other parts of the West and for Latin America. The second company, Wells Fargo & Company (spelled without a comma), was incorporated on Nov. 15, 1968, as a holding company for Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, a descendant of the original firm. Other companies have also possessed rights to use the Wells Fargo name. The founders of the original company were Henry Wells (1805-78) and William George Fargo (1818-81), who had earlier helped found the American Express Company. They and other investors established Wells, Fargo & Company to handle the banking and express business prompted by the California Gold Rush. In California the company handled the purchase, sale, and transport of gold dust, bullion, and specie and other goods to be moved from the West to the East Coast by ship, via the Isthmus of Panama. In the decade following 1855, Wells Fargo expanded into staging activities overland from Missouri and the Midwest to the Rockies and the Far West, leading in 1866 to a grand consolidation of almost all Western stagecoach lines under the Wells Fargo name. The great days of stagecoaching gradually declined, however, after completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. In 1905 Wells Fargo's banking operations (in California) were separated from its express operations and merged with the Nevada National Bank (founded 1875) to form the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank. In 1923 this bank merged with the Union Trust Company (founded 1893) to form the Wells Fargo Bank & Union Trust Co., a name that was shortened to Wells Fargo Bank in 1954. In 1960 it merged again, this time with the giant American Trust Company (dating to 1854), to form the Wells Fargo Bank American Trust Company. In 1968 the holding company Wells Fargo & Company was created to own all shares of Wells Fargo Bank, NA, as the bank was renamed. In the late 20th century Wells Fargo Bank (headquartered, as was the holding company, in San Francisco) had more than 300 branches throughout California, as well as subsidiaries, affiliates, and branches worldwide. In 1986 Wells Fargo & Company acquired the Crocker National Corporation for approximately $1 billion. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo the express carrier eventually disappeared. In 1918 its domestic operations were taken over by American Railway Express (reorganized in 1929 as Railway Express Agency, Inc., and fading into bankruptcy in 1975 as REA Express, Inc.). Wells Fargo's foreign express business, as in Mexico and Cuba, continued independently until 1924, when American Express Company acquired 51 percent controlling interest in Wells Fargo stock and thereafter gradually absorbed the remaining Wells Fargo express business. During the years under American Express, however, Wells Fargo had also developed security services; and these, together with rights to the Wells Fargo name, were sold in 1967 to Baker Industries, Inc., and survive in its subsidiary Wells Fargo Armored Service Corp. and such divisions as Wells Fargo Guard Services and Wells Fargo Alarm Services.