The Largely Unknown Story Behind Jim Casey’s Founding of UPS.
Every day, a brown UPS truck rolls down a street somewhere in Nevada. Almost nobody knows the company's story runs straight through a Nevada mining camp.
James Emmett “Jim” Casey was born in 1888 in Pickhandle Gulch, a tiny silver camp near Candelaria in Mineral County.
His family moved to Seattle when he was still an infant. That much shows up in most business history books. What most of them leave out is what happened next.
A Young Man Chases the Boom
As a teenager in Seattle, Casey worked as a telegraph messenger boy. He knew the delivery business inside and out before he was old enough to vote.
When word of Nevada's Goldfield gold strike spread, Casey headed back to the state where he was born to try his luck at mining.
Mining didn't pan out, so to speak.
So Casey and a partner did what they already knew how to do. They started a message delivery service in Goldfield, running telegraph and telephone messages around the booming camp.
They brought on a third man, John Moritz. And the little company took off.
The three even had matching uniforms, pillbox hats, and double-breasted jackets with brass buttons – sharp outfits for a dusty mining town.
Tragedy on the Streets of Goldfield
The business was working. Then it wasn't.
John Moritz was shot and killed by a vagrant on the streets of Goldfield. Casey and his surviving partner were disheartened. They packed up and went back to Seattle.
It's the kind of moment that could have ended the story right there.
Instead, it turned out to be the setup for something much bigger.
From a Seattle Basement to a Global Company
Back in Seattle, 19-year-old Casey reunited with his old friend Claude Ryan.
On August 28, 1907, the two borrowed $100 and opened a six-by-seven-foot basement office under a Seattle saloon. They called it the American Messenger Company.
Two telephones, two bicycles, and six teenage boys running deliveries around town.
That little basement operation eventually became United Parcel Service.
Today UPS delivers more than 5 billion packages a year to over 220 countries, and it's one of the largest employers in the world.
A Nevada Story Worth Telling
Casey's own words say a lot about what he built.
“The basic principle which I believe has contributed more than any other to the building of our business as it is today, is the ownership of our company by the people employed in it,” he said, reflecting on the philosophy that shaped UPS for decades.
That philosophy didn't stay just talk.
Even today, decades after Casey's death, UPS employees and retirees still own a meaningful share of the company, something rare for a corporation this size.
That principle, and the grit behind it, has Nevada fingerprints on it.
A kid born in a silver camp, tested by a mining bust, and a tragedy in Goldfield, went on to build one of the most recognizable companies on Earth.
Next time a UPS truck rolls past, remember it might not exist at all if a teenager from Pickhandle Gulch hadn't tried his luck in a Nevada boomtown first.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. Digital technology was used in the research, writing, and production of this article. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
