Louis McLane (expressman)

Louis McLane Jr. (January 20, 1819 – December 13, 1905) was an American financier from a prominent Maryland family, who became a prosperous California forty-niner.

[1] In 1835, at just sixteen years old, he left his classes at Newark College when he was appointed a midshipman in the U.S. Navy, serving aboard the USS Ohio from 1838 to 1840.

[1] Shortly after his marriage and resignation from the Navy, McLane left for San Francisco and a career as a financier which was to take him away from his family many times during the next thirty years.

[3][4] On November 1, 1866, he succeeded Danford N. Barney to become president of the Wells Fargo & Company Express, which he reorganized after its takeover of Holladay Overland.

[6] In his later years, he served as chairman of the executive committee of the Mercantile Trust Company of Baltimore and a director of many financial institutions.