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—Photos, Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society. These "wildcat" bank notes on the old Waubeek bank of De Soto are similar to a $5 one presented to State Treasurer Hall at Lincoln for collection yesterday.
(By a Staff Correspondent.) Lincoln, Neb., Oct. 25.—Inflation, current worry of State Treasurer George Hall, hit him right smack in the face today when his morning mail brought an 1857 "wildcat" bank note.
While he sat in the state treasury wondering what managed currency and other monetary intricacies might do to the state's fixed incomes, appropriations, investments and salaries, he opened a letter from Homer C. King of St. Joseph, Mo.
A bank note, blackened and fragile from age, dropped out. Pictures of George Washington and apparently Henry Clay peered through. Lawyer King, writing on behalf of Client William Bradley, enclosed the $5 bank note to be paid on demand by the Waubeek Bank of De Soto, Neb. "How about collecting the $5 for my client," asked King.
"Just as Worthless." "No," answered Hall, "and there are 480 thousand dollars just like it still outstanding somewhere, and just as worthless."
De Soto was a thriving town of 1,500 in 1856. But it's just a cow pasture now. Seventy-five river vessels once unloaded at its docks (six miles south of what is now Blair), State Historian A. E. Sheldon explains.
Business was booming. Business lots sold for from five hundred to three thousand dollars each. Farms brought $50 to four hundred dollars an acre. (Does that sound familiar?).
There the trouble started. "The class of speculators whose operations were most baneful were wildcat bank promoters," Sheldon said. "These men professed to believe that an abundance of money in circulation—in other words, inflated currency—meant general prosperity."
Notes Ground Out. The easiest way was for banks to grind out notes. More banks could manufacture more notes. Five men could start a bank then, opening the doors the moment half the initial capital was subscribed, before a cent was paid in.
The third territorial legislature issued the Waubeek charter, over Governor Izard's veto, in 1856. Bribery was charged. The Waubeek bank started manufacturing its share of notes.
"In the fall of 1857 the bank suspended business. Everything was a total loss. Everybody was insolvent. It was a joke to try to collect debts," Sheldon says.
So these bills are still out-
Dr. Floyd Walsh, dean of the Creighton college of commerce, will speak on "The New Philosophy of Business," before the Concord club at the Hotel Paxton this noon.