Lloyd Tevis signed Homestake Mining Co. - 1890's dated Autograph Mining Stock Certificate (Uncanceled)

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 enterprises in the United States and operated the renowned Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota. Founded in 1877, the company was acquired by Barrick Gold in December 2001. Notably, Homestake holds the record for the longest continuous listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The company was established on November 5, 1877, when George Hearst (father of William Randolph Hearst), Lloyd Tevis, and his brother-in-law James Ben Ali Haggin purchased the 10-acre Homestake Mine from its original discoverer, Moses Manuel, for $70,000.

Homestake became a public company on January 25, 1879, with its initial public offering being the first mining stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company expanded its operations by establishing hydroelectric plants in 1910 and 1917, which were later sold to the city of Spearfish, South Dakota, in 2004. Paul C. Henshaw served as President from 1970 to 1977. In 1981, Homestake acquired its partner’s stake in its uranium joint venture, United Nuclear Corporation, for $23 million and took over four uranium mines and a mill. The company also acquired an additional 34% of a Bulgarian mine in March 1996 and, in April 1998, purchased Plutonic Resources Limited for $640 million, adding mines in Australia to its portfolio. In December 1998, Homestake acquired the remaining 49.4% of Prime Resources Group. However, by September 2000, the company decided to close the Homestake Mine by January 2002, and it was eventually acquired by Barrick Gold in December 2001.