Currency of Boys Town, Omaha, Nebraska - late 1940s - early 1970s

Hello! I recently was given this set of paper ticket currency that came from an antique store in Seward, Nebraska. It appears to be a complete specimen set of the ticket currency that the children of Boys Town used within their internal economy during the late 1940s until the early '70s. There doesn't appear to be much information available about these so hopefully in the future this thread can serve as a type of reference for others researching these items.




For those unfamiliar with Boys Town, it is an organization and campus that centers around caring for and educating of youth, particularly troubled boys and teens. It was founded on the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska in what is today the village of Boys Town, but it is essentially a part of Omaha. It was founded in 1917 by an Irish Catholic priest, Father Flanagan and, according to their website, has grown to impacting more than two million people every year by its missions.

I could find little information about the ticket currency online, unfortunately. The only pictured examples I could find (shown below) come from a lot from Heritage Auctions earlier this year. It was a group of six well-circulated pieces of the 25 cents. The color appears to be a faded brown, like the 25 cent example from my set. They appear identical to the one from my set, minus the specimen stamp on mine.




According to the Boys Town National Alumni Association's Alumni News, there was the Boys Town Bank where at least one longtime staff member, Mr. Robert "Bob" Erding, now passed, worked with the youth in the bank and employed some of the boys as tellers in the bank. Some of the duties were cashing checks and dispensing the ticket currency used in Boys Town.

Further information about the currency was shared by Thomas J. Lynch, the current Director of Community Programs. He wrote to me the following;

"Yes this was part of the currency used by the boys at Boys Town. Each student received an allowance of this paper money or actual coins. The boys had their own bank where they kept their accounts. This taught the boys banking practices. In the Hall of History museum we have the original bank counter and the money on display. It was used to buy snacks in the boys malt shop, or in their own store which sold small items for the kids. They used the money from about the late 1940’s until the early 1970’s."



If anyone has any similar examples or information about this currency series, or even Boys Town as an organization, please feel free to share!

Sources
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• Boys Town National Alumni Association's Alumni News - Spring 2013 – Volume 52, Issue 1
• Heritage Auctions 2020 February 11 Tuesday US Currency Weekly Online Auction #142006, Lot 82160

 

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That's pretty interesting. I grew up near Seward, Nebraska. We played them in high school sports. Unfortunately, I can't help you with the Boys Town currency.

 

In addition, there are bronze, aluminum, and fiber tokens of 5, 10, 25, 50, 1.00 and 5.00. These, plus the paper, are listed in the 3rd edition of Nebraska Trade Tokens, issued earlier this year by the Nebraska Token Collectors Club. They are listed as R1, meaning that 100+ are known, which is our category for the most common tokens. That's not to say, however, that a particular denomination may be scarcer. I myself am not aware of those marked "Specimen" as presented by the OP.

 

Yes, very interesting. My mom grew up in York, Waco, Utica area. A few of my cousins still in that area.

 

Small world

 

Thanks for this information! I had no idea that there was a publication like that for Nebraska tokens. Super cool. Glad to know that these pieces have been published somewhere. I found a couple of the bronze tokens pretty easily online but I'd love to see a fiber token if anyone had one. Does the book discuss anything about the history of the currency? I'd assume that the tokens predated the paper currency?

 

Sorry. The Nebraska Trade Tokens book does not provide history, except for occasional snippets of type of business and especially for mavericks, providing an abbreviated attribution. The bulk of the catalog is listings of the tokens by "towns" and then by merchants. The typical information is known denominations, metals or other composition, different wording varieties, various sizes and shapes, etc. As it is, there are almost 900 pages over two volumes with a page size of 8 1/2 x 11. I'm guessing more than 20,000 tokens are listed. It would be great to get descriptive information on the various issuers, but that would require a more specialized reference.

 

Totally understandable given the sheer size of that then. That sounds like a great reference, I have a couple Nebraska tokens but I don't think any are trade tokens. Thanks for the information about the book, though.