William Fargo

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William Fargo

William George Fargo (born May 20, 1818 in Pompey , Onondaga County , † August 3, 1881 in Buffalo ) was a pioneer of the US postal, rail and transportation system.

Life

Wells Fargo Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota
American Express Company stock dated October 13, 1865; signed by William G. Fargo as secretary and Henry Wells as president

William George Fargo was born the eldest of twelve children of William C. Fargo (1791-1878) and Stacy Chappel Strong (1799-1869). The ancestors of the paternal line came from France, the original spelling of the name was Fargeau.

From the age of 14, William Fargo had to provide for his own living and received little schooling. For several years he was a clerk in grocery stores in Syracuse . In 1841 he became a freight agent for the Auburn & Syracuse railway company in Auburn , the following year an express carrier between Albany and Buffalo and finally, in 1843, an agent in Buffalo. In 1844 he founded with Henry Wells (1805-1878) and Daniel Dunning his first transport company (Wells & Co. , Livingston & Fargo after 1845 ) , which was mainly active in the transport service west of Buffalo. This company's lines (which at first only went to Detroit via Cleveland ) were quickly expanded to Chicago , St. Louis, and other western destinations.

In March 1850, when competing lines merged into the American Express Company, Wells became its President and Fargo Secretary. In 1852 - in the middle of the Californian gold rush  - he founded the company Wells, Fargo & Co. for stagecoach and banking services with Wells . This company set up an express service between New York and San Francisco , across the Isthmus of Panama and on the Pacific coast, where the company had long had a virtual monopoly. In 1861 Wells Fargo bought the Overland Mail Co. , founded in 1857 with Fargo's assistance as the postal service for the United States. From 1862 to 1866, Fargo, a Democrat , was mayor of Buffalo, and from 1868 until his death in Buffalo he was president of the American Express Company , which merged with Merchants Union Express Co. in 1868 . He was also a director of the New York Central Railroad and Northern Pacific Railway companies .

Fargo , the largest city in North Dakota , was named after William Fargo.

Fargo's co-founded companies, Bank Wells Fargo and the credit card company American Express , are now global corporations . Wells Fargo Freight Forwarding Services are immortalized in the song The Wells Fargo Wagon from the musical The Music Man .

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