Banking and Business

Step inside the late 1800s replica bank to experience the history of banking on the High Plains.

This exhibit defines three important periods in national banking history, the National Banking Act of 1863, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the Banking Act of 1933.

Through documents and articfacts the exhibit explains the reality of banking from the Open Range Era to the 1930s.

In the east, Federal laws established a national banking system and standardized currency but at the beginning of the open range era there were no banks on the High Plains and livestock transactions involved everything from a handshake sealing a deal that payment would be made at some point in the future, credit obtained at double digit interest rates and sales paid for with gold, silver or bank notes carried to the transaction site in a money belt.