Jottings from the Granite Studio

From the “You find history in the weirdest places file,” Wells Fargo actually has its own history blog, and I suppose well it should since the company’s history is so intertwined with that of the US West and especially California. (Think: “The Wells Fargo wagon is a-comin’ round…”)

Two posts this week take the bank’s history even further. “Wells Fargo in Japan” tells the story of a Japanese employee of Wells Fargo who helped assist a distressed ship from Japan off the coast of San Francisco in 1858 and the bank opening a branch in the Yamato Department Store in Los Angeles in 1912. The post on Wells Fargo’s involvment with the Chinese community runs even deeper. A Chinese translator named Tam Tong worked for Wells Fargo in San Francisco as early as 1863-1864 and the bank published bilingual merchant directories and a Chinese-English dictionary for its customers. Apparently, a group of local Chinese even helped to feng shui the Parrot Building, built in 1855, which would become the head office of Wells Fargo in San Francisco.
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Images via the Wells Fargo history blog, Guided by History.