Norwest Corporation was a banking and financial services company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.

Early Minneapolis business and political leaders Dorilus Morrison and Henry T. Welles were the bank's first two presidents.

None of the Banco members went under – and no depositor lost any savings – because the group was able to move liquidity around the system and in some cases, inject new capital into troubled banks.

But during that decade, Banco began adopting a more unified structure in terms of systemwide planning, marketing, data processing, funds management, and loan syndication.

Total assets had reached $11 billion, ranking Banco as the 20th largest banking company in the United States.

The troubles actually began in late 1979 when Richard H. Vaughan, the president and CEO, was electrocuted by a wire that had fallen during a storm.

The new leader began centralizing the still loosely knit confederation into a more traditional bank holding company.

[3] Tellingly, the new name did not include 'bank' or some variant thereof because Morrison aimed to reposition Norwest as a diversified financial services company.

He'd taken steps in this direction a year earlier, when he engineered the acquisition of Dial Corporation (not to be confused with the consumer products company of the same name) in September 1982 for $252 million.

Based in Des Moines, Iowa, Dial had more than 460 offices in 38 states offering consumer loans for everything from cars to sailboats.

However, until the Norwest Center opened in 1988, corporate staff was scattered around 26 different sites in the city, leading to numerous logistical difficulties.

At the same time came the pruning of some rural operations, including eight banks in southern Minnesota and seven branches in South Dakota.

In 1988 Norwest entered rapidly growing Arizona for the first time through the purchase of a small bank near Phoenix.

In April 1990 Norwest paid $173 million for Sheboygan-based First Interstate of Wisconsin (formerly Citizen's Bank of Sheboygan), a $2 billion concern.

[5] Between January 1994 and June 1995, Norwest made an additional 25 acquisitions, including several in Texas, making it the most active acquirer among bank holding companies.

By year-end 1995, Norwest had total assets of $72.13 billion, making it the 13th largest bank holding company in the nation.

Net income, which was nearing the $1 billion mark, had grown at a compounded annual rate of 25 percent over the previous eight years.

His focus was on smaller customers, checking account depositors and small businesses, and he aimed to build relationships with them that would lead to cross-selling of other financial services – an auto loan, a mortgage, insurance, a mutual fund, and so on.

With a branch network covering 16 states, Norwest had the largest contiguous bank franchise in the nation.

[1] Although Norwest was the surviving entity, retaining the Northwestern Bank charter, the merged company took the better-known Wells Fargo name and moved its headquarters to San Francisco.

[6] In 1949, Northwestern National Bank constructed a 157-foot high weatherball, designed by Douglas Leigh, atop its headquarters building in downtown Minneapolis.

After the 1982 Minneapolis Thanksgiving Day Fire and before the building was demolished, the bank's weatherball was dismantled and stored at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.