Friends Of Tenino
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Wooden Nickel Exchange ProgramThe Wooden Nickel Program is a concept to simulate local businesses by providing wooden nickels stamped a participating business's name, address, phone number, and an incentive coupon or discount value that can be redeemed at their store. The Wooden Nickels would be exchanged between local businesses and then distributed to customers to stimulate local residents and occasional shoppers to take notice of the wide array of good shopping opportunities in Tenino. Call Loralin Toney at 264-7286 or Kate Donoghue at 264-2884 for information on signing up your local business for the program. Together we can strengthen our town. Wooden Nickel Exchange Supporters
The original wooden money
The
Nation, and Tenino, was gripped by the Great Depression in 1931, and money was
scarce. The Independent in November of that year advocated editorially
that scrip be used to meet the currency shortage. Then on December 5,
1931, the matter of emergency struck home with the failure of the Citizens Bank
of Tenino. Joel Gould, now of Olympia, came over from Buckley to act as
liquidator. This tied-up the accounts of the depositors while the affairs
of the defunct bank were being adjusted. Thus the shortage of money became
acute. The
Tenino Chamber of Commerce met to meet the emergency and agreed to issue scrip
to permit the depositors to assign 25% of their bank accounts to the Chamber.
The printing press at the Independent office was soon running out of assignment
forms and depositors signed for definite amounts of money within the 25%
limitations. The printing of $1.00, $5.00 and $10 denomination scrip was
done on engraved pieces the size of paper money then in use. The 25 cent
denomination was the yellow bond paper without any fancy border. Trustees
of the Chamber of Commerce Committee, F.W. Wichman, D.M. Major and A.H. Meyers,
signed each piece. They agreed to redeem the certificates “During the
Process of Liquidation of the Citizens Bank of Tenino.” This scrip
printed in December, 1931 totaled $3,255, of which $1,279 was circulated.
Eventually the Chamber redeemed $1,079.75 of this scrip. Some
samples of “slice wood”, a new printing material, had been received from
Albert Balch of Seattle, who was promoting it for Christmas cards and other
items. This was made in a special machine at Aberdeen by a man named
Eckersley. Sitka Spruce and Port Orford and red cedar were used. The
first pieces were flimsy sheets of 1/80th of an inch thick. The
25 on hand were sufficient to put Tenino in the wooden money business.
Later the slices were sandwiched with a paper in between. One issue of a
thousand even carried a “watermark” reading “Confidence makes good; Money
made of wood”, which could be seen by holding it up to the light. This
was supposed to guard against counterfeiting. The
publicity of Tenino Wooden Money began to snowball in February, 1932, the old
Seattle Star carrying the story early that month, followed by the Tacoma
News-Tribune, Oregonian, Seattle P-I and others. The Halls of Congress
heard of the unique method of meeting the money shortage and in March it was
featured in the Congressional Record. Thousands of stories and comments
appeared over the world in newspapers and magazines. Orders from
collectors and souvenir hunters came in increasing demand and eight issues were
printed through 1933, mostly in 25 cent denominations, but also in 50 cent and
$1.00. In all $10,308 worth of wooden money was issued of which about $40
was redeemed by the Chamber of Commerce. In April, 1935, business people
used small wooden fifth cent tax tokens due to a state shortage of tokens.
Like the original wooden money, they are now quite valuable.
Provided by the City of Tenino
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