Lloyd Tevis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President of Wells Fargo & Company | |
| In office 1872–1892 | |
| Preceded by | William Fargo |
| Succeeded by | John J. Valentine Sr. |
| Personal details | |
| Born | March 20,1824 Shelbyville,Kentucky |
| Died | July 24,1899 (aged 75) San Francisco,California |
| Spouse(s) | Susan G. Sanders (m. 1854) |
| Children | 5 |
| Parent(s) | Samuel Tevis Sarah Greathouse Tevis |
Lloyd Tevis (March 20,1824 –July 24,1899) [1] was a banker and capitalist who served as president of Wells Fargo &Company from 1872 to 1892.
Lloyd Tevis was born in Shelbyville,Kentucky,the son of Samuel and Sarah (née Greathouse) Tevis. His father was a prominent attorney and circuit court clerk,and from 1842 to 1844 Lloyd studied law in his office and assisted him as court clerk. After a further period of study and work in a neighboring county,he became a salesman with a wholesale dry goods company in Louisville,Kentucky. He was highly regarded,and when the company failed he was appointed assignee.
On the basis of his performance in this position,Tevis was offered,and accepted,a place in the Bank of Kentucky in 1848. He left the bank shortly,however,to accept a position with an insurance company in St. Louis,Missouri. [2]
Tevis went to California to join the gold rush in the spring of 1849. Finding little success in the diggings,at the end of the year he went to Sacramento and secured a position in the county recorder's office. Saving money from his salary,after a few months he made his first investment in land,purchasing a lot for $250. In October 1850 he joined an acquaintance,James Ben Ali Haggin,in opening a law office in Sacramento. They moved to San Francisco in 1853. [3] Haggin and Tevis acquired the Rancho Del Paso land grant near Sacramento.
Haggin and Tevis married sisters,daughters of Colonel Lewis Sanders,a Kentuckian who had emigrated to California. Tevis married Susan G. Sanders on April 20,1854. The Tevises were the parents of three sons and two daughters. [3] His daughter Louise married John Witherspoon Breckinridge,a son of former Vice President John C. Breckinridge,in 1877. [4]
Tevis was one of the principal owners of the California Steam Navigation Company and one of the projectors of telegraph lines throughout California. In the negotiations for the sale of the California State Telegraph Company to the Western Union Telegraph Company,it is said that his profits and commissions amounted to $200,000. He was also the leading promoter of the California Dry Dock and the California Market in San Francisco,the president and principal owner of the Pacific Ice Company;and one of the early manufacturers of illuminating gas in California. At one time Tevis owned 1,300 miles of stagecoach lines in California,horse-drawn streetcar lines in San Francisco,and ranch lands with thousands of head of cattle and sheep. He was a pioneer in the reclamation of "tule" or swamp lands in central California. [5]
In the 1860s,Tevis was one of the men responsible for development of various railroads in and around San Francisco,including the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad,Oakland Short Lines,and the first iteration of the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1868,he sold his railroad interests to the Central Pacific Railroad's "Big Four" of Collis P. Huntington,Leland Stanford,Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker. [6]
In May 1868 Tevis joined Darius Ogden Mills,H.D. Bacon,Stanford,Hopkins and Crocker (the latter three part of the Central Pacific "Big Four") in forming the Pacific Union Express Company. This concern began operating in 1868 between Reno and Virginia City,Nevada,and received a ten-year exclusive contract to operate over the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. Stock of Wells Fargo &Company declined in price,Tevis and his associates purchased quantities of it,and by the fall of 1869 he was in a position to control Wells Fargo. Faced with the need to get Tevis' exclusive railroad contract,in the so-called Omaha Conference of October 4,1869,Wells Fargo accepted Tevis' controlling interest and arranged for the consolidation of Pacific Union Express and Wells Fargo,which occurred in 1870. [7] Tevis was elected vice president and a director of Wells Fargo in 1870. [8]
Elected president of Wells Fargo in 1872,Tevis served in that capacity until 1892. [9] He was also a large shareholder of the Spring Valley Water Company,the Risdon Iron Works,the Occidental &Oriental Steamship Company, [10] and the Sutro Tunnel Company of Virginia City. Tevis was also one of the promoters of the Southern Pacific Railroad,serving briefly as acting president of the company (in place of Stanford) in 1869-70 after its acquisition by the Big Four - Stanford,Hopkins,Crocker and Collis P. Huntington. [5] [11]
A sound operator,Tevis made his most risky ventures when he went into gold,silver and copper mining on a large scale. He was owner or part-owner of gold and silver mines in California,Nevada,Utah,Idaho,and South Dakota. Tevis,Haggin and George Hearst,as Hearst,Haggin,Tevis and Co.,owned the Homestake gold mine in the Black Hills and the Ontario silver mine in Utah,and Tevis,Haggin,Hearst and Marcus Daly owned the great Anaconda copper strike in Montana. [12] [13] [14] [15]
In 1896 the Hearst share of the Anaconda copper properties was sold to an English syndicate. In May 1899,Tevis,Haggin and Daly sold their shares to a syndicate led by Henry H. Rogers. For his share Tevis is said to have received $8 million. [5]
Tevis said he could think five times as fast as any man in San Francisco. [16] Often he proved it. However,in later years it is said that he relaxed banking practices too much. John J. Valentine,Sr. and other Wells Fargo directors were critical of his administration following an extensive audit in 1891. On August 11,1892,Tevis was forced out as president of Wells Fargo with Valentine elected his successor. Further pressure resulted in Tevis' resignation from the board of directors a year later,on August 10,1893. [17]
Two months after selling his interest in the Anaconda properties,Tevis died in San Francisco on July 24,1899,survived by his wife and five children. [1] [18]
In the San Francisco earthquake and fire of April 18,1906,Tevis' son,Dr. Harry Tevis,rescued the opera singers Emma Eames and Marcella Sembrich and brought them to the wooden Tevis mansion on Nob Hill. When it became obvious the next day that the house would be destroyed by the advancing fires,Tevis led them to the safety of North Beach. [19]
The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento,California,to complete the western part of the "First Transcontinental Railroad" in North America. Incorporated in 1861,CPRR ceased operation in 1885 when it was acquired by Southern Pacific Railroad as a leased line.
Amasa Leland Stanford was an American industrialist and politician. A member of the Republican Party,he served as the 8th governor of California from 1862 to 1863 and represented California in the United States Senate from 1885 until his death in 1893. He and his wife Jane were also the founders of Stanford University,which they named after their late son. Prior to his political career,Stanford was a successful merchant and wholesaler who built his business empire after migrating to California during the Gold Rush. As president of the Central Pacific Railroad and later the Southern Pacific from 1885 to 1890,he held tremendous power in the region and a lasting impact on California. Stanford is widely considered a robber baron.
Marcus Daly was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte,Montana,United States.
Collis Potter Huntington was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading who invested in Theodore Judah's idea to build the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. Huntington helped lead and develop other major interstate lines,such as the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Chesapeake &Ohio Railway (C&O),which he was recruited to help complete. The C&O,completed in 1873,fulfilled a long-held dream of Virginians of a rail link from the James River at Richmond to the Ohio River Valley. The new railroad facilities adjacent to the river there resulted in expansion of the former small town of Guyandotte,West Virginia into part of a new city which was named Huntington in his honor.
Charles Crocker was an American railroad executive who was one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad,which constructed the westernmost portion of the first transcontinental railroad,and took control with partners of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
"The Big Four" was the name popularly given to the famous and influential businessmen,philanthropists and railroad tycoons who funded the Central Pacific Railroad,(C.P.R.R.),which formed the western portion through the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains of the First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States,built from the mid-continent at the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean during the middle and late 1860s. Composed of Leland Stanford (1824–1893),Collis Potter Huntington (1821–1900),Mark Hopkins Jr. (1813–1878),and Charles Crocker (1822–1888),the four themselves,however,personally preferred to be known as "The Associates." Enriching themselves enormously with tax money and land grants,while heavily influencing legislature from within the Republican party,and through monopolizing tactics,the Big Four have been widely regarded as robber barons and even as the greatest swindlers in U.S. history.
George Hearst was an American businessman,miner,and politician. After growing up on a small farm in Missouri,he founded many mining operations,and is known for developing and expanding the Homestake Mine in the late 1870s in the Black Hills of South Dakota. In 1879,he listed it on the New York Stock Exchange and went on to other pursuits. The mine operated continuously,producing gold until 2001.
Hearst,Haggin,Tevis and Co.,a company started in California in the 1850s and headed by San Francisco lawyer James Ben Ali Haggin with Lloyd Tevis and George Hearst,grew to be the largest private firm of mine-owners in the United States. Hearst himself acquired the reputation of arguably being one of the most expert prospector and judge of mining property on the Pacific coast,and contributed to the development of the modern processes of quartz mining. Today Jastro Winkle Diamond Co continues the Diamond Production in California.
The Copper Kings were the three industrialists William A. Clark,Marcus Daly,and F. Augustus Heinze. They were known for the epic battles fought in Butte,Montana,and the surrounding region,during the Gilded Age,over control of the local copper mining industry,the fight that had ramifications for not only Montana,but the United States as a whole.
Benjamin Pierce Cheney was an American businessman,and a founder of the firm that became American Express.
Isaias Wolf Hellman was a German-born American banker and philanthropist,and a founding father of the University of Southern California.
John Joseph Valentine Sr. was an American expressman. He was the first president of Wells Fargo &Company who had not been a banker and served from 1892 until his death in 1901.
James Ben Ali Haggin was an American attorney,rancher,investor,art collector,and a major owner and breeder in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing. Haggin made a fortune in the aftermath of the California Gold Rush and was a multi-millionaire by 1880.
Ashbel Holmes Barney was an American banker and expressman who served as president of Wells Fargo &Company in 1869-1870.
Rancho Del Paso was a 44,371-acre (179.56 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Sacramento County,California,In 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena,Captain John Sutter’s old friend,gave 44,000 acres to Elijah Grimes. Grimes called it the Rancho del Paso because it was on the road to the pass of the American River through the Sierra. . The grant extended along the north bank of the American River and was bounded roughly by today’s Northgate Boulevard,Manzanita Avenue,and Elkhorn Boulevard. The grant encompassed present-day North Sacramento,Del Paso Heights,Rio Linda,Arden-Arcade,and a portion of Carmichael.
Stephen William Shaw was a California '49er and portrait painter who helped discover and name Humboldt Bay and introduced viticulture to Sonoma County by 1864.
The Ontario silver mine is a mine near Park City,Utah,United States. The lode was discovered by accident on 19 January 1872 by Herman Budden,Rector Steen (Pike),John Kain,and Gus McDowell. The mine was purchased by George Hearst through R. C. Chambers from the prospectors for $27,000 on 24 August 1872.
Wells Fargo was an American banking company based in San Francisco,California that was acquired by Norwest Corporation in 1998. During the California Gold Rush in early 1848 at Sutter's Mill near Coloma,California,financiers and entrepreneurs from all over North America and the world flocked to California,drawn by the promise of huge profits. Vermont native Henry Wells and New Yorker William G. Fargo watched the California economy boom with keen interest. Before either Wells or Fargo could pursue opportunities offered in the Western United States,however,they had business to attend to in the Eastern United States.
John Witherspoon "Owen" Breckinridge was an American lawyer and politician who served in the California State Assembly.