If you’ve seen one of these stuck in the pages of an old book, you might want to take it immediately to a coin and currency dealer. National currency notes were once the paper money of the nation. Between 1890 and the end of the program in 1935 51 Wyoming banks printed their own legal tender cash.
In Fremont County, the First Shoshoni National Bank of Shoshoni, the First National Bank of Lander, and Wind River National Bank also in Shoshoni, all printed bills in denominations from a single dollar to one-hundred-dollar notes.
These were big bills originally, seven and three-eighths by three and one-eighth, substantially larger than modern Federal Reserve Notes.
The First National Bank of Lander printed notes in the smaller size from 1928 to 1934. By then the two banks in Shoshoni were just history.
Lander had Fremont County’s first national bank, opening in 1892, it lasted almost a century until it was merged in 1989. A total of 58,272 National Currency notes were printed by the Lander bank, 47,268 large notes from 1892 to 1929 and 11,004 from then to 1935. It represented $725,920 in circulated cash.
The two banks in Shoshoni came a few years later.
The First National Bank of Shoshoni opened before Shoshoni became a town. Charles H. King established the bank in advance of the arrival of the Chicago North Western Railroad that was marching west from Casper towards Lander. The bank was viable until 1924.
King built the First National Bank building on the northwest corner of Shoshoni’s Main Street in 1906. The imposing brick structure remains today, one of the few buildings that survived fire and demolition into the 21st century.
A rival arrived later in 1906 in the Wind River National Bank. Alexander Johnston Cunningham was the bank president.
Cunningham knew the banking business. He was president of the Casper National Bank 100 miles distant to the east and realized the economic opportunity of a bank on the edge of the last great land rush of the American West with the opening of the purchase of the ceded portion of the Wind River Indian Reservation on the north side of the Wind River.
His Wind River National Bank was never major competition with King’s operation. In 1908 the
Wind River Bank closed after printing just 860 bank notes totaling $10,750.
For the national currency to be valid, the bank president and chief cashier had to sign each bill.
A fire in the early morning on March 16, 1908, destroyed the entire east block of Main Street. It started on the far south end of the street in Edward Burke’s saloon but it spread north to the Wind River National destroying everything.
The Wind River National Bank merged with the newly organized Riverton National Bank later that year.
The First National Bank of Shoshoni was a viable institution. By the time it closed in 1924, $249,950 dollars were circulated with 19,996 bank notes printed.
None of these banknotes remain. To currency collectors, the National Currency notes printed for Shoshoni represent something more valuable than a three-legged Buffalo nickel or a 1909 S VDB Lincoln cent.
There were two more banks, neither of them national, in Shoshoni during the early years of the town. The Shoshoni State Bank provided the financial backing for Riverton businesses that their banks weren’t able to, most notably, the Big Bend Oil Company that had leases on several thousand acres in Fremont County.
On May 31, 1922, two men broke into the Shoshoni State Bank. Using nitroglycerine, they blew open the safe and made off with an unspecified amount of money. That they were never caught isn’t that extraordinary, what was exceptional is that the predawn blast didn’t wake anyone up. A teller arriving around 6:30 to set up business for the day discovered a hole in the plate glass front window and the contents of the safe strewn around the lobby.
The second bank had a brief one year run from 1926 to 1927. Lewis Shawver, a druggist, jeweler and owner of the Shawver Hotel across from the First National Bank opened the Lewis Shawver’s State Bank but it never took off.
There were 51 national banks in Wyoming that printed national currency with their name on it.
A look at the towns that were viable enough to have currency printed by their banks is a study of the ebb and flow of Wyoming’s erratic economy over the last century.
Four of the banks from this period are still in business. The First National Bank of Buffalo is the oldest, opening when Wyoming was still a territory in 1885. The Rock Springs National Bank opened in 1892, the Rawlins National Bank in 1900 and the First National Bank of Lovell in 1916.
The rest have either closed, been liquidated or merged with other banks
Some of the towns with banks printing currency are a surprise.
Rock River, Manville, Lusk, Guernsey, Meeteetse, Basin, and Saratoga are all very small towns that once had money circulated around the region with their First National Bank name printed on it.
The First National Bank of Cheyenne was the oldest in Wyoming, opening in 1871, soon after the Union Pacific arrived. The Wyoming National Bank of Larame opened just two years later in 1873. There were three national banks that printed currency in Laramie.
The First National Bank of Laramie and Cheyenne had a bit of criminal notoriety when notes printed by both were scattered into the wind in the early hours of June 2, 1899.
The Wild Bunch, of Butch and Sundance fame, flagged a Union Pacific train near a wooden bridge north of Rock River. They forced the crew to unhook the locomotive from the cars and had them pull away.
Butch Cassidy was notorious for using too much dynamite and he destroyed the car while blowing apart the safe. The railroad lost $36,000 in gold, silver and currency. The gang made off with the coins, but the currency was blown high into the air with much of it catching fire and few of the bills were recovered.
The idea of small banks printing money is a study in the advancing art of American currency.
Wyoming Currency printed in the name of small town banks – h/t U.S. Treasury
Before the American Civil War few Americans trusted currency. Banks, businesses and even individuals printed script that could be considered currency, but was of use only locally, where people knew and could trust the institution issuing it.
The popularity of blue jeans can be traced to America’s distrust of paper money.
In 1853 a young German arrived in San Francisco on a ship. Levi Straus was a shop keeper, but a man who looked for other opportunities as well.
When miners began trying to buy pants from his store, they often complained that the pockets were too weak to hold gold nuggets or even the silver dimes, quarters, half-dollars and dollars they carried. Strauss took the suggestion of one miner to make some pants from dam canvas. Strauss did, but instead of just stitching them together, he riveted the pressure points. These reinforced “overall” pants as they were originally called were a big hit.
The Civil War created the push for a nationally backed currency. The Confederate States of America issued their own currency, which rapidly suffered some of the worst inflation in American History before it became worthless with the surrender of the Confederacy.
Seeing what had happened to confederate money made U.S. citizens that much more wary.
Lincoln signed the National Currency Act into law in 1863.
The provisions of the act were that any national bank could have currency printed in their name if that bank purchased federal bonds to back up the money issued. Originally, a bank could only print 90% of the amount they held in federal bonds, but after 1907, 100% of the amount in bonds could be printed and circulated.
It provided a bit of economic stability but there were still major panics, short term depressions really, in 1873, 1893 and 1907.
For major investors, and trading banks, gold certificates were printed that banked transactions in gold held at Ft. Knox. For the average citizen, the silver certificate was created. A silver certificate could be exchanged for the exact amount of the bill in silver coins at any national bank.
Silver Certificates were once works of art – h/t U.S. Treasury 
The entire system was backed by gold, and that too proved to be a limiting factor in commerce. As America grew, the gold supply didn’t keep up.
William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate campaigned with the slogan “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,” first said in a speech in 1896.
Bryan traveled to Fremont County, still speaking against the Gold Standard when he arrived in Riverton on September 29, 1916, to campaign for Woodrow Wilson. He spoke to a huge crowd for 30 minutes on a temporary wooden platform in downtown Riverton in front of the Riverton Lumber Company, then continued on the Chicago North Western for another speech in Lander.
A few years later, Bryan got his wish. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1934, ending the gold standard and making it illegal for any American to own gold coins minted in the United States. It ended the currency notes too, replacing them with our present Federal Reserve Notes. The silver certificates remained until 1964 but were still redeemable until June of 1968.
Gold certificates used by banks before wire transmissions – h/t U.S. Treasury 
The elimination of the gold standard opened the American economy to expansion, and for a brief time eliminated much of the hoarding of wealth by a handful of citizens.
That has changed with the top one percent owning 30 percent of the wealth in America currently.
Paper currency floats with the economy, losing value with each passing year. A dollar printed by the Shoshoni National Bank in 1906, is worth $35 in purchasing power today.
Coinage made of precious metal does not.
1902 Series Federal Currency printed in 1906 for three Fremont County Federal Banks – only the names of the banks are changed on these proof sheets – Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Gold prices were set at $35 per ounce as part of the Federal Reserve Act of 1934. Today, gold sells for $2,600 per ounce, an increase of 7400 percent. Silver was a dollar an ounce until 1964, now it’s $30.
Maybe Levi Strauss was right, we need bigger pockets.