Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-08-30
Wells Fargo Museum Recalls Days
When Black Bort Plagued Stages
BY BUD SPRINGER

BY BUD SPRINGER
SAN FRANCISCO. Aug. 20
(AP).-Nowadays when Cali
forniaS Wells Fargo wants to
move It's money. 1t calls In q
commercial armored car serv-
Ice like any other bank.
But Just to remind itself OF
the company's rootin.' tootin'
past, the bank keeps q museum
in the heart Of San Francisco's
financial district. It has .
stagecoach in mint condition,
q large collection Of six-guns
and other mementoes Of q wild
youth.
Wells Fargo Bank started as
Q sideline for Wells. Fargo q
Co., the hardest riding express
firm the world ever saw. The
express business vanished by
congressional order into the
American Railway Express dur
ing World War I.
Gerald w. Wickland, . bank
vice president who didn't want
the past forgotten. started the
museum, which now draws in
troops Of school children, . few
alumni and bank employees.
Youngsters looking over the
stagecoach in the museum tell
Irene Simpson, the curator,
that it's Q lot larger than they
had expected. A Wells Fargo
stage seated nine people in
side and i've on the roof-and
you had to step away up to
get in.
An addition the bank would
like to make to its records Ia
the after-prison history Of
Charles e. Bolton, the most en-
terprising road agent who ever
robbed o Wells Fargo stage.
Bolton left doggerel poetry
at each holdup scene, signing
himself Black Bart. Before he
was finally captured, he had
stopped % Wells Fargo stages.
Hard to Trace
Wells Fargo never has heard
one word about him since his
parole following q four-year
stretch in San Quentin prison,
although it ordered its agents
to keep an eye peeled for him
for years.
Born in New York, Black
Bart looked as little like q BAN
dit as possible. He was So years
old when captured, stood 5 feet
71a. had q size 6 foot, q large
nearly white moustache. IRON
gray hair and was described by
Wells Fargo detectives as neat
and tidy.
They also noted that he was
"chaste In language, eschews
profanity and has never been
known to gamble" He didn't
smoke, drink or take opium,
which was easier to come by In
those days.
On his 2Sth job. between
Sonora and Copperopolis in the
mother lode country, he was
chased away by gunfire from Q
passing hunter and dropped q
handkerchief. j. B. Hume, ia
nous Wells Fargo detective,
found Q laundry mark on the
handkerchief and through it
traced the notorious robber to
. San Francisco rooming house.
Hume's records prove that
the holdup business was quite
brisk in these parts between
1870 and 1884. During that
time bandits and burglars took
$415,S12 from Wells Fargo in
313 stage robberies, % bur-
klaries and 4 train robberies.
Hume and his colleagues
were o busy lot also, obtain
ing $40 convictions, killing 11ve
men who were trying to rob
stages and II who were trying
to escape. Hume notes that
seven robbers were hanged by
citizens" He probably meant
lynched.
Wide Network
Such o full record is under
standable when you remember
that Wells Fargo once owned
the Butterfield Overland Stages,
the Holiday Overland Mail
and the Pony Express, and
later all but monopolized
Western Railroad Express.
What does the bank think
about movies and TV portray
ais of the business founded in
1852 by Henry Wells Of Thet-
ford, VT. and William George
Fargo Of Pompey, N. Y? T. T.
Townsend, advertising man
Ager, thinks that all-in-all it's
. pretty good thing.
"Wells Fargo made its name
by making good to customers
when the stages were robbed"
he explains. And besides. the
bank can't do q thing about it
the name is public property,
30 long as it is not applied to
the bank, he adds.