Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo was not the first express company in the United States, but it became synonymous with the American West and with the fight against the robbers who called to drivers to “throw down that box,” the iron-bound green box that contained money, gold, mail, and whatever else people might need to send from one place to another. Despite its association with the West, particularly in relationship to law enforcement, Wells Fargo was formed in 1852 by two Easterners, Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, to serve the west by offering banking and express package delivery. In 1845, the two had previously formed Wells & Co.'s Western Express to provide express and package service west of Buffalo, New York, to Cincinnati, Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri; and Chicago, Illinois. Its modern equivalents would be the United Parcel Service and Federal Express.

After 1866, Wells Fargo combined all the major western stagecoach lines and its distinctive coaches began to travel over 3,000 miles of territory from Nebraska west to California. Wells Fargo carried passengers, mail, and packages in its stagecoaches; valuables were locked in Wells Fargo's easily identifiable green iron boxes. The boxes were always placed on the driver's bench of the stagecoaches and protected by shotgun messengers, virtually all of whom were crack shots with a rifle and many of whom were peace officers before, during, or after their employment with Wells Fargo.

At a time when there were few local police and no federal law enforcement, the shotgun messengers, undercover agents, and special agents employed by[Page 903] >Wells Fargo constituted a police system set up not only to combat bandits but also to investigate internal theft and fraud within the company. This system was the model of policing that would be followed by the railroads when they set up their policing system and by many federal agencies that also relied on a combination of plainclothes special agents and internal auditors for their policing, with the addition of uniformed officers at their primary locations later in their development.

In 1858, Wells Fargo was estimated to have carried between 70 and 90% of the mail in California, making the coaches immediate targets for some of the famous western robbers. To combat these thefts and robberies, the company employed a vast network of stagecoach shotgun messengers, who rode in the passenger seat of the stagecoach to protect goods and lives and were expected to shoot to kill any would-be robbers. On some particularly dangerous routes, the stagecoaches traveled in caravans with armed riders in front and behind the coaches that carried bullion during the gold rush years. The value of the packages carried by Wells Fargo would be difficult to estimate at current value. Between 1870 and 1877, one messenger was estimated to have carried $4 million worth of gold solely within the state of California.

The shotgun messengers who also had careers as public law enforcement officers included Wyatt Earp, later a deputy U.S. marshal, and both his brothers, Virgil, later a city marshal of Tombstone, Arizona, and Morgan, a Tombstone police officer; and Bob Paul, later sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, and U.S. marshal of Arizona Territory. Less well-known was “Old Charlie” Parkhurst, a messenger who died in 1897 and was only then discovered to have been a woman.

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