TENINO, Wash. — Disclaimer: This episode is an encore presentation of KING 5's Evening. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the 2020 Oregon Trail Days on July 24th - 26th is canceled. Please visit the Oregon Trail Days site for further information.
For more than 20 years, Loren Ackerman has been making money the old fashioned way, by printing it himself.
At the Old Tenino Depot Museum, he uses the same 1890 Chandler & Price press that once printed the local paper.
This is the machine that saved Tenino in its darkest days.
“They were closing doors and locking things up and they had to come up with something to keep the town alive,” says Ackerman.
To understand the story we have to go back 90 years to the Great Depression when Tenino's only bank ran out of money. City leaders came up with their own currency, printed on the one thing Tenino would never run out of.
Wood.
“It’s very, very bendable,” says Ackerman, holding a razor-thin dollar. “It can even snap if you bend it too much.”
What happened next surprised everybody. Tenino's wooden dollars became collectors’ items.
“That was the beauty of it,” says Ackerman. “We have letters in our collection from all over the country of people requesting that wooden money.”
Financial advisor Chris Hallett is one of the nation's biggest collectors today. Inside a vault he keeps most of his wooden money. His office just happens to be inside the old Tenino bank building.
“The wooden money's back in the bank almost 100 years later,” laughs Hallett.
Original Tenino currency has sold for up to $4000 but the wooden dollar isn't ancient history.
“It is still used in currency today,” says Hallett.
At Scotty B's 50's Style Diner you can buy a Pepsi and some wooden dollars.
“It's like buying a gift certificate for the whole town,” says owner Scott Highline. “They can spend it at the gas station they can spend it at the grocery store.”
At Deni Hanson's Time Machine store you can even buy life-sized Star Wars figures using wooden money.
“I would never turn anybody away that wanted to use the wooden money,” says Hanson. “It's a great story and customers love to use it .”
As long as Tenino is using wooden dollars, Loren Ackerman is willing to print them.
Just don't ask him to make change.
“You know wooden nickel jokes bug me,” he says.
The best time to see wooden money getting printed is during Oregon Trail Days the last weekend in July -- the 2020 event is canceled.
Disclaimer: This episode is an encore presentation of KING 5's Evening. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the 2020 Oregon Trail Days on July 24th - 26th is canceled. Please visit the Oregon Trail Days site for further information.
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