The Wells Fargo Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 27, 1978. The skyscraper was listed because it was an excellent example of commercial Beaux-Arts architecture and because it stands "as a glossary of modern skyscraper design, synthesizing the primary features of three phases of skyscraper development reaching back to the 1880s". The building's characteristics are its tripartite system of a base, shaft, and capital, the treatment of the skyscraper as a tower, and the use of setbacks.