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Lloyd Tevis signed Homestake Mining Co. - Stock Certificate (Uncanceled)

Inv# AG1046   Stock
Lloyd Tevis signed Homestake Mining Co. - Stock Certificate (Uncanceled)
State(s): Dakotas
Years: 1890's
This Homestake Mining Co. 1890's stock has a nice uncanceled signature of Tevis as President. Rare and in Excellent Condition!

Lloyd Tevis (1824-1899) was a banker and capitalist who served as president of Wells Fargo & Company.

He 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 1842-44 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.

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 married sisters, daughters of Colonel Lewis Sanders, a Kentuckian who had emigrated to California. 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. 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.

In May 1868 Tevis joined Darius Ogden Mills, H.D. Bacon, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker in forming the Pacific Union Express Co. Stock of Wells Fargo & Co. declined in price, Tevis and his associates purchased quantities of it, and by the fall of 1869 he was in a position to control Wells Fargo. Faced with the need to get Tevis' exclusive railroad contract, in the so-called Omaha Conference of October 4, 1869, Wells Fargo accepted Tevis' controlling interest and arranged for the consolidation of Pacific Union Express and Wells Fargo, which occurred in 1870. Tevis was elected vice president and a director of Wells Fargo in 1870. Elected president of Wells Fargo in 1872, Tevis served in that capacity until 1892. Tevis was also one of the promoters of the Southern Pacific RR, serving briefly as acting president of the company (in place of Stanford) in 1869-70 after its acquisition by the Big Four-Stanford, Hopkins, Crocker and Collis P. Huntington.

A sound operator, Tevis made his most risky ventures when he went into gold, silver and copper mining on a large scale. He was owner or part-owner of gold and silver mines in California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and South Dakota. Tevis, Haggin and George Hearst owned the Homestake gold mine in the Black Hills and the Ontario gold mine in Utah, and Tevis, Haggin, Hearst and Marcus Daly owned the great Anaconda copper strike in Montana. In 1897 the Hearst share of the Anaconda copper properties was sold to an English syndicate. Two years later, Tevis, Haggin and Daly sold their shares to a syndicate led by John D. Rockefeller. For his share Tevis is said to have received $8 million.

Tevis said he could think five times as fast as any man in San Francisco. In later years it is said that he relaxed banking practices too much. Wells Fargo directors were critical of his administration following an extensive audit in 1891. On August 11, 1892, Tevis was forced out as president of Wells Fargo. Further pressure resulted in Tevis' resignation from the board of directors a year later, on August 10, 1893.

 

Homestake Mining Company was one of the largest gold mining businesses in the United States and the owner of the Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota. Founded in 1877, it was acquired by Barrick Gold in December 2001. Homestake was the longest-listed stock in the history of the New York Stock Exchange.

George Hearst (father of William Randolph Hearst), Lloyd Tevis, and his brother-in-law James Ben Ali Haggin bought the 10-acre Homestake Mine from its discoverer, Moses Manuel, for $70,000, and incorporated the Homestake Mining Company on November 5, 1877. On January 25, 1879, the company became a public company via an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, the first mining stock ever listed.

In 1910 and 1917, the company established hydroelectricity plants. They were sold to the city of Spearfish, South Dakota in 2004. Between 1970 and 1977, Paul C. Henshaw was President of the company. In 1981, the company bought out its partner in its uranium joint venture, United Nuclear Corporation, for $23 million and assumed operation of four uranium mines and one mill. In March 1996, the company exercised its option to buy 34% more of a mine in Bulgaria. In 1997, the company agreed to acquire a majority interest in the Troilus mine from Inmet Mining but backed out of the deal, leading to a lawsuit. In April 1998, the company acquired Plutonic Resources Limited for $640 million, adding mines in Australia. In December 1998, the company acquired the 49.4% of Prime Resources Group that it did not already own. In September 2000, the company announced plans to close the Homestake Mine by January 2002. In December 2001, Barrick Gold acquired the company.

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Condition: Excellent

A stock certificate is issued by businesses, usually companies. A stock is part of the permanent finance of a business. Normally, they are never repaid, and the investor can recover his/her money only by selling to another investor. Most stocks, or also called shares, earn dividends, at the business's discretion, depending on how well it has traded. A stockholder or shareholder is a part-owner of the business that issued the stock certificates.

Item ordered may not be exact piece shown. All original and authentic.
Price: $415.00