WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM
A NOTE TO TEACHERS
This packet was designed as a educational resource intended for use
in the classroom. The contents cover information that you and your
students may have received or will receive on a tour of the Wells Fargo
History Museum in Old Sacramento.
The historical materials contained in this resource packet are from the
Archives of Wells Fargo Bank. They are intended as a classroom aid for the
study of California history in the fourth grade. Teachers do not need to ask
permission to photocopy these materials for use in the classroom.
By photocopying the documents and the accompanying questions,
teachers can give students the experience of learning history by analyzing
primary sources.
WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM
SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1.
Make a list of similarities and differences between a Wells Fargo stagecoach and
a modern automobile.
2.
Compile a diary describing your personal experiences during an imaginary
stagecoach journey from Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento, California.
3.
Write/present brief explanations/illustrations advertising the Wells Fargo History
Museum in a guidebook for foreign tourists.
4.
Write a letter to a relative/friend in which you describe a tour of the Wells Fargo
History Museum.
5.
Write a report for your school newspaper about stagecoaches in the Wells Fargo
History Museum. Use personal interviews with other students, chaperons, and
teachers.
6.
Write/design/produce brief dramatic skits about the arrival of the Pony Express
bringing the news to Sacramento that Abraham Lincoln has been elected
President of the United States; the arrest and trial of Black Bart; the discovery of
gold by James Marshall at Sutter’s Mill.
7.
Write/present odes, ballads and sonnets focusing on Gold Rush themes, images
and personalities (for example, gold discovery, stagecoach travel, the Pony
Express).
8.
Draw portraits of Henry Wells, William Fargo, or Black Bart. Draw a Concord
stagecoach.
9.
Present a demonstration on different methods of mining for gold.
10.
Organize a spelling bee using words pertaining to the Gold Rush.
WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM
EATIN’ VITTLES: GOLD RUSH FOOD
Many traveler’s guidebooks were published during the Gold Rush to help people reach California
safely and successfully. Among the leading questions would-be argonauts asked was what food to
bring. The guide books attempted to answer such questions, often in very humorous ways. One of the
most popular guide books of the time was published in New York in 1849 by T. H. Jefferson. Below is
some advice about food from Jefferson’s Brief Practical Advice to the Emigrant or Traveller.
Provisions — take plenty of bread stuff; this is the staff of life when everything else
runs short. A diet exclusively of fine flour bread has a bad effect on the bowels and is
unwholesome. Take a proportion of unbolted wheat four and indian corn meal ... Don’t
take any fat bacon; discard it entirely. Articles that may be taken – – lean ham and
smoked beef (bagged and lined). Smoked salmon, herring, sardines, preserved meats
and soups in tin. Take as little grease as possible. Rice, beans, peas, butter crackers,
soda biscuit, ship bread, dried fruit, peaches, apples, plums, dates, pumpkin, honey,
preserves, sugar house syrup (in tin can), sugar, vinegar, pickles, pepper (red and
black), fine table salt... Tea, coffee (roasted, ground, packed in small tins hermetically
sealed). Those determined to annoy themselves preparing coffee, want a coffee-mill
screwed to the body of the wagon. A water drinker fares the best and is saved a great
deal of trouble; cooking is an annoyance. Buffalo meat is sweet and wholesome; cow
meat is most tender ... Good bread is the most important and best food to be had upon
the journey — how few know how to make it! That made by most of the emigrants is a
vile compound of bad flour, hog grease and saleratus [potassium or sodium
bicarbonate]. Such bread, with the free use of bacon and the neglect of the bath,
produces cabin fever. Every person who starts upon this journey should know how to
make good bread. It should not contain a particle of grease — it should be mixed with
its own leaven or yeast cake, and well kneaded ... Some bread -stuff might be packed
in tin cylinders, with sunken holes that can be securely corked, and stood on the end,
the same as the sack. When the flour is used out, they are ready to carry water for
long drives. Water pails should be of tin. In an arid climate iron rusts but slowly; a
charge of powder in a rifle remains perfect for months, and even wood does not decay
as in the states. Everything seems preserved. The finger and toe-nails seem to
become hard and brittle. Buffalo dung, called “buffalo chips,” lies cured upon the
ground, ready for use as fuel. In the states, where the climate is moist, such fuel would
not answer at all!
GOLD RUSH FOOD ACTIVITY SHEET I
In the space below, write a menu for 18 people. Use the foods and the advice mentioned in
Gold Rush Food. Then, on the next page tell how you would prepare and cook the food along the
trail to California.
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Dinner:
GOLD RUSH FOOD ACTIVITY SHEET II
How I would prepare and cook the food on my menu along the trail to California:
Steps in Preparation
Steps in Cooking
HINTS FOR STAGECOACH TRAVELERS ACTIVITY SHEET
IMAGINE YOU ARE ON BOARD A STAGECOACH GOING TO CALIFORNIA AND ARE KEEPING A DIARY OF EACH
DAY’S EVENTS ALONG THE WAY. YOUR TRIP WILL TAKE YOU FIFTEEN DAYS AND NIGHTS FROM OMAHA,
NEBRASKA TO SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA. IN THE SPACE BELOW, MAKE FIVE BRIEF ENTRIES INTO YOUR
DIARY TELLING HOW AND HOW WELL YOU AND YOUR FELLOW PASSENGERS OBEYED THE RULES OUTLINED
IN “HINTS FOR STAGECOACH TRAVELERS.” BELOW YOUR ENTRIES, DRAW A MAP SHOWING THE ROUTE YOU
TRAVELED FROM OMAHA TO SACRAMENTO.
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WOMEN & WELLS FARGO ACTIVITY SHEET
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JULIA JONES
It is ten o’clock at night. Julia Jones has worked hard all day as a Wells Fargo agent and
superintendent of schools for Mariposa County. By now, she is very tired and is ready for bed. She
has to get up a five o’clock tomorrow morning so she needs a very good night’s rest. As she drifts off
to sleep, she remembers all the things she did that day.
First , she ....
CALIFORNIA MATCHMAKERS
INSTRUCTIONS:
For each blank in the following sentences, choose a word from the list below to complete the
sentence accurately.
WORDS TO MATCH
Fargo
gold coins
ATM
stagecoach
treasure box
James B. Hume
Henry
iron pyrite
Sutter’s Mill
Pony Express
thoroughbraces
check
telegraph
Black Bart
St. Joseph, Missouri
Forty-Niners
Marshall
Hastings
Sacramento, California
shotgun
back boot
gold scales
Morse
1.
James W. __________________ discovered gold at ______________________
in January, 1848.
2.
The pioneers who came to California in 1849 were called
_____________________________________________ .
3.
A ___________________ is a mighty vehicle which travels long distances and
carries passengers, luggage, mail and other express items.
4.
__________________ Wells and William _____________ founded Wells Fargo
& Co. in 1852.
5.
The B. F. __________________ building was a Wells Fargo office in
Sacramento as well as the western terminus for the ______________________ .
6.
Underneath the body of a Concord stagecoach, one quarter-inch strips of leather
called _____________________ are very much like shock absorbers on a
modern automobile.
7.
The ______________________ messenger sat next to the driver at the front of
the stagecoach.
8.
A ______________________ sends electronic messages using
______________
code.
9.
Wells Fargo’s express was carried in a green
_____________________________
that was stored in the front boot of the
stagecoach under the driver’s feet.
10.
___________________________ was a stagecoach robber who was eventually
captured by Wells Fargo’s chief detective, ____________________________.
11.
Wells Fargo agents used ______________________ to weigh miner’s gold and
exchange it for ________________________ or a _______________________ .
12.
Fool’s gold is another name for _____________________________________ .
13. Stagecoach passengers stored their luggage in the
________________________
of the stagecoach.
14.
Pony Express riders traveled from _______________________________ to
_____________________________ in an average of ten days.
15.
The ______________________________ in the Wells Fargo History Museum
was not a part of 19th century banking.
PLAYING BY THE NUMBERS
INSTRUCTIONS:
Solve the following mathematical problems and place an answer in the blank before each one.
1.
__________
In one day, James pans four ounces of gold. If gold is worth $16 a Troy ounce,
how much did James make that day?
2.
__________
The number of horses pulling a Concord stagecoach was an even number
immediately on each side of 5. What are the two possibilities for the number of
horses pulling a Concord stagecoach?
3.
__________
If there are 12 Troy ounces in A Troy pound of gold, how many Troy ounces are
there in 50 Troy pounds?
4.
__________
If a Concord stagecoach travels 5 miles an hour, how many miles does it travel
in 24 hours?
5.
__________
Cassie travels by stagecoach from San Francisco to Sacramento. She leaves
San Francisco at 9 a.m. and arrives in Sacramento at 11 p.m. How long did the
journey take?
6.
__________
During the Gold Rush, ninety percent of the Forty Niners did not become
millionaires. What percent did become millionaires?
7.
__________ Henry wants to buy a horse to travel to the Gold Country. He can pay either with
$50 in paper money or with three ounces of gold dust. If gold is worth $16 a
Troy ounce, should he pay in paper money or in gold dust to get the better
bargain?
8.
__________ William is buying supplies at the general store before going to the Gold Country.
He chooses a gold pan for $10, a shovel for $15, a pick for $1, a tent for $20,
and a blanket for $8. He has only $50 to spend. Which item should he decide
not to buy? Why? ________________________________________________
9.
__________ Julia is making quilts to sell to the women of her mining camp. The first quilt she
made is 2 yards long and 4 yards wide. How many feet long by how many feet
wide is her quilt?
10.
_________
Lucy discovers that the largest number of passengers who can ride on a
Concord stagecoach at any one time is an even number between 15 and 20 that
is divisible evenly by 3. What is the largest number of passengers a Concord
stagecoach can carry at one time?