Wells Fargo Bank History Museum

Wells Fargo Bank History Museum Review

There were no formal banks in San Francisco during the early years of the gold rush, and miners often entrusted their gold dust to saloon keepers. In 1852 Wells Fargo opened its first bank in the city, and the company soon established banking offices in mother-lode camps throughout California. Stagecoaches and pony-express riders connected points around the burgeoning state, where the population boomed from 15,000 to 200,000 between 1848 and 1852. The museum displays samples of nuggets and gold dust from mines, a mural-size map of the Mother Lode, mementos of the poet bandit Black Bart (who signed his poems "Po8"), and an old telegraph machine on which you can practice sending codes. The showpiece is a red Concord stagecoach, the likes of which carried passengers from St. Joseph, Missouri, to San Francisco in just three weeks during the 1850s.