Portrait of William Fargo

Birthday profile

William Fargo

William Fargo, American businessman and politician, co-founded Wells Fargo and American Express (died 1881)

Born
May 20, 1818
Died
August 3, 1881
Zodiac sign
Taurus
Birth year
1818

About William Fargo

William George Fargo was an American businessman and politician who founded Wells Fargo and Company, originally shipping, mail delivery, a stagecoach line, and banking, now Wells Fargo banking corporation, and American Express company. In 1852, Henry Wells and William Fargo created Wells Fargo & Co. when Butterfield (and other directors of American Express) objected to the extension of its operations to California. The original Wells Fargo & Co. was created to facilitate an express business between New York and San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama and the Pacific coast. Livingston, who became Fargo's partner in Livingston, Fargo & Company.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when William Fargo was born

William Fargo was born in 1818. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1818

  • Best-selling bookFrankenstein by Mary Shelley

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineUS-Canada border established at 49th parallel
  • Technology milestoneFirst blood transfusion using human blood
  • World population~990M

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderJames Monroe
  • U.S. population9.1M

1818 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in William Fargo's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18182026
Population9.1M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.