The History Corner | AG Media Enterprises
The Wells Fargo Concord Stagecoach
WELLS FARGO MUSEUM | 333 S. Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90071
Interesting day spent at the The Wells Fargo Museum in Los Angeles, California for a private event. On display were many historical artifacts such as period weapons, gold rocks, telegraph machines, and the famed Concord Stagecoach.
(i) In 1866, Wells, Fargo & Co. ran the greatest stagecoach line ever. On three thousand miles of dusty roads, Wells Fargo coaches raced between Cisco California, and North Platte, Nebraska, and headed north from Salt Lake City into Idaho and Montana. They covered 125 miles each 24 hours as four or six fresh horses slipped into fresh harnesses every twelve miles.
(ii) For those paying $300 for the fifteen-day trip between Sacramento and Omaha, the Company offered "first class conveyances," seating nine inside.
(iii) Skilled craftsmen at the Abbot-Downing Company in Concord, New Hampshire, shaped iron, leather, and oak, ash, and elm to construct the 2,225-pound vehicles. Price: $1,100. The leather thoroughbrace suspension made a Concord Coach, as Mark Twain said, "an imposing cradle on wheels." The Concord Coach has become an international symbol of Well Fargo's presence worldwide.
(iv) Coach #599, one of Abbot-Downing's finest Western-style Concord Coaches, ran between Burnside and Monticello, Kentucky, from 1897 to 1915.
References: (i) (ii) (iii) and (iv) Wells Fargo History Museum
Photographs by Antonio Gilbreath for AG Media Enterprises
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