National Bank Notes and Proper Nouns
Sep 13th, 2009 | By admin | Category: wells fargoRyan Baum is a 17-year Wells Fargo man, a Sr. VP in Asset Management. He’s a U.S. Navy veteran and a leading member of Wells Fargo’s Veterans Resource Group. He has been a coin and currency collector since the age of five. This is his third blog about National Bank note history and Wells Fargo’s place in it. (CR)
Growing up in Southern California, I never realized how much the car culture turned so many things into proper nouns — those formal names preceded with “The.” Traffic reports always talked about “The San Diego Freeway,” “The Golden State Freeway,” “The Hollywood Freeway,” etc. When I would give directions to such places as downtown, I would advise the driver to take “The 405 to The 10.” Only when I moved to Northern California did I realize directions could be given without the article, as simply numbers: “take 80 to 980 to 880.”
As it turns out, some objects of affection in the financial world get elevated to proper nouns, too.
In 1875 four Comstock Lode bonanza kings 
capitalized a San Francisco-based bank. John Mackay , James Flood , James Fair and W. S. O’Brien endowed the bank with the inconceivable amount of $10 million dollars, and named it the Nevada Bank in honor of the source of their wealth.
Of course, even unlimited capital is no replacement for experienced management, so eminent Los Angeles banker Isaias W. Hellman was enticed north to run the institution in 1890. Under Hellman’s leadership, the Nevada Bank received national charter #5105 in 1897.
But the best was yet to come eight years later….
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