Speaker Jim Douglas - Wells Fargo

Tue, Aug 2nd 2016 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm


The Club's weekly meeting was as usual held in Best Western Scores hotel this week chaired by JVP Mike Dow. It was reported that an amount of £332.54 was made at the Club’s stand at the Highland Games held on Sunday.

The evening's speaker was member Jim Douglas who talked on Wells Fargo. This interest was started not only by watching John Wayne films but also by a gravestone he found in Dean cemetery in Edinburgh. This commemorated a Colonel Robert A Smith, a local man who was a Confederate officer, killed in 1862 in the American Civil War. The gravestone was sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. In a subsequent visit to San Francisco he visited a Wells Fargo bank and saw a restored 1866 stagecoach. This started his research into the background of the company's development. With the expansion of American settlements to the west, three companies were established to set up express services and in 1850 amalgamated to set up American Express. Eventually two of the directors, Messrs Wells and Fargo left and set up their own company in California. John Butterfield eventually set up an overland route from St Louis to California, originally via Mexico. However larger consignments went by sea and overland in Panama organised by Wells Fargo. The Pony Express subsequently started, providing a much speedier service over the Rockies and this was later taken over by Wells Fargo. Soon, however, telegraph and then railroads took over. However in 1918 the Government took over all express work and the company developed its small banking business. In 1920 it produced a home small savings bank in the shape of a stagecoach. It soon began taking over other banks, although retaining their names, and this is how it has grown into the large organisation it is today. On behalf of the members, Jim Allison thanked Jim for a most interesting talk.

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