Discover in Portland’s Wells Fargo & Company History Exhibit how the California Gold Rush created a "profound and immediate need to connect people across the United States with reliable banking, communication, commercial and transportation services." The history exhibit has century old photographs and documents describing how Wells, Fargo and the colorful people who worked with them helped fill this need with "tremendous spirit, determination and courage."A journey to California could take six months. The Wells Fargo overland line stagecoach, advertised in 1868 as a "luxury conveyance," cut the travel time to just three weeks.
Wells Fargo was the first to place offices where even the United States Mail would not deliver, making it possible for people to exchange raw gold dust and nuggets, conduct banking transactions, reliably send and retrieve mail and parcels, and meet family and friends arriving on the overland coaches. You can experience an early Wells Fargo office, rebuilt as it was in those days with everything from actual nuggets of gold to a working telegraph key.
The centerpiece of the History Exhibit is the Conchord Stage. The Conchord Stagecoach carried as many as 18 people--nine in the leather-lined interior and nine more clinging to the top. With a strongbox full of gold under the driver's seat, a stagecoach pulled by six-horse team was an icon of western commerce and development. In 1867, Wells Fargo advertised a 'through-time' of 15 days from Sacramento to Omaha on its route through "the beautiful scenery of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains." Since then the Concord Coach has been a symbol of Wells Fargo & Co.
Master craftsmen at the Abbot-Downing Company of Concord, New Hampshire, joined ash, elm, basswood, hickory, and oak into a distinctive oval-shaped body, carried upon perfectly balanced wheels rimmed with iron. Leather "thorough braces," produced from ox hides, eased the ride over frozen roads and hard, sun-baked trails. This suspension system gave the coach a rocking motion and led overland passenger Mark Twain to call it "a cradle on wheels."
This coach, Abbot-Downing #306, is the oldest in Wells Fargo's current fleet. Built in 1854, it had a long career carrying mail between Halifax and Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada until 1890. It had the honor of carrying two British monarchs--the Prince of Wales (King Edward VII) in 1860; and Princess Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth II) in 1951.
The finished coach was painted red with a straw yellow undercarriage. Artists added scroll detailing and a landscape on each door panel. Inside, leather upholstery padded the jolts of the road.
There are nine Wells Fargo History Museums in the Continental United States (five are located in California). Portland’s Wells Fargo & Co. History Exhibit is located in the Well Fargo & Co. building (formerly the First National Bank of Oregon building) at 5th and Jefferson. Banking Hours: Monday-Friday 9-6.
Instructions for logging waymark: visit Wells Fargo History Museum. Log your impressions. A photograph is required of the historic Conchord Stagecoach with you and/or your GPSr in the picture.