Wells Fargo corporate history
CONVERSATIONS FROM THE CORNER OFFICE: Wells Fargo & Co. President and CEO John Stumpf.
Wells Fargo & Company CEO and President John Stumpf. (Courtesy of Wells Fargo)
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Wells Fargo Corporate History
Wells Fargo's rise is inevitably tied to the fortunes and the blossoming of the West.
In 1852, Henry Wells and William Fargo founded Wells, Fargo & Co. in the gold rush port of San Francisco, offering banking services pegged to the exchange of gold. Soon, the nascent finance chain opened offices in other boomtowns and mining camps in the region.
To expedite communication and deliveries between these different locations, Wells, Fargo helped start the Overland Mail Company, which employed stagecoach, steamship, railroad and other forms of transportation. In 1866, Wells Fargo combined all the major western stage lines and stagecoaches emblazoned with the name Wells, Fargo & Co., which traversed over 3,000 miles of land from California to as far as Nebraska. The stagecoach became the bank's corporate symbol.
Today, the banking giant is a diversified financial services company with operations around the world. It is the fifth-largest bank in the United States by assets and the ninth-largest bank in the world by market capitalization.
