Lloyd Tevis

Lloyd Tevis (March 20, 1824 – July 24, 1899) 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 (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.

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 a recent acquaintance, James Ben Ali Haggin, in opening a law office in Sacramento. They moved to San Francisco in 1853. 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.

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.

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