Tevis Forum 2012

TEVIS FORUM 2012 ★ 49 fromembarrassment and financial setbacks. By the 1880s, the firmwas the foremost private business association on the Pacific Coast. No two men were better known. They plunged into mining operations. Along with George Hearst, they became at least part owners of virtually all the important gold, silver and copper mines in the West, holding properties in California, Nevada, Utah, Montana and South Dakota. They eventually sold their mining holdings to a syndicate dominated by John D. Rockefeller. Each partner’s share of the sale was reported to have been in the neigh- borhood of $8 million. In San Francisco, their power was in- sidious. They were financial backers of the Cliff House and directors of Spring Valley Water Co. Tevis, alongwith Leland Stanford and banker D.O. Mills, was a builder of the California Street Cable Car Railway. Their real estate holdings were enor- mous. In Kern County alone, Tevis and Haggin controlled over 300,000 acres upon completion, New York-based Wells, Fargo and Co., comfortable with its almost total monopoly over express operations in the West, complacently assumed it would reap the benefits of the railroad through continued domination of wagon express. The cunning Tevis, along with D.O. Mills, acquired and rejuvenated the near- defunct Pacific Express Co. They success- fully secured a contract from the railroad as the exclusive freight carrier. When this contract became known in 1870, Wells, Fargo and Co. stock plum- meted almost overnight from $100 to $13 a share. Tevis, Haggin, Mills and Leland Stanford took advantage of this upheaval. They invested, acquiring controlling inter- est of Wells, Fargo. Two years later, Lloyd Tevis was anointed. Installed as president of the prestigious express concern, he replaced the legendary William G. Fargo. Tevis or- dered the corporate headquarters moved from New York to Montgomery Street in James Ben Ali Haggin, first vice president of Wells Fargo, was a keen horseman. His horse, Ben Ali, won the Kentucky Derby in 1886. The Haggin Cup was given to the Tevis Ride in 1964 by Haggin’s grandson. which they ran great herds of cattle and sheep. Only Charles Lux and Henry Miller owned more holdings of land. By early 1869, as the transcontinental railroad neared San Francisco and, thereafter, Wells, Fargo became a Western company. Under Tevis’ leadership, with Haggin as vice president