3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2018
The Oregon town where
MONEY GREW ON TREES
Rare coins in
North Bend
By BRYAN M. VANCE
Oregon Public Broadcasting
In 1933, with its only bank
closed and the country in the
midst of the Great Depression,
the shipbuilding and timber
city of North Bend turned to a
local resource to keep its econ-
omy afloat.
Pat Choat Pierce remem-
bers working at Duke’s
Drive-In, a restaurant off U.S.
Highway 101. A high school
senior at the time, Pierce came
of age in one of the most pros-
perous decades in U.S. history,
which just so happened to fol-
low the worst economic down-
turn the nation had ever faced.
“After the first week, Mr.
Duke was not able to pay us.
There was not enough money
coming in at that particular
time,” she said.
Instead of her first week’s
pay, her boss handed over a
pair of coins.
“So Duke said … ‘I’ll give
you this coin that is more
than 2,000 years old — from
Europe — and here’s one of
these $5 pieces that North
Bend used to use — myrtle-
wood pieces. And you bring
those back to me next week
and then I’ll give you your
salary.’”
Pierce, whose mother was
a coin collector, took the coins
without any debate. She fig-
ured the Roman coin would
make a valuable start to her
own collection. She had no
idea.
The Roman coin turned out
to be junk, not worth much
due to its pervasiveness. But
the myrtlewood coin — a $5
wooden piece given to her in
1948 — she still has it. It’s
the anchor piece in her collec-
tion of North Bend’s one-of-a-
kind currency, known locally
as myrtlewood money. A local
form of money that is still as
good as cash in the boundaries
of North Bend.
Myrtlewood money
Myrtlewood money’s story
began in the early months of
1933. Life in America was
hard in those days. The nation
was in the midst of the Great
Depression. Banks were fore-
closing on farms and homes.
Businesses were closing.
Unemployment was estimated
as high as 25 percent nation-
wide. And North Bend, a
small timber and shipbuilding
city on the Coos Bay, was not
immune to the nation’s woes.
In early January of that
year, the town’s only bank
announced a 30-day closure.
It was intended as a measure
to shore up the institution’s
assets. But in the following
weeks, no word came about
when the bank would reopen.
Thirty-eight days after the
First National Bank of North
Bend closed its doors, the local
Bryan M. Vance/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Lifelong North Bend resident Pat Choat Pierce poses with
her collection of the city’s myrtlewood money. Pierce is
widely regarded as the foremost expert on North Bend’s
wooden currency.
newspaper ran a story about
the Depression hitting the
county jail. The jail was laying
off its only cook.
“Prisoners in the county
jail will do their own cooking
or starve,” Coos County Com-
missioner Chas Doane told
The Coos Bay Harbor. With
news of the bank’s reopening
still elusive, the directors and
city leaders worked on a plan
to save depositors’ money.
Finally, it was revealed that
the bank was securing a loan
on the value of its building
to make good on its commit-
ments to depositors. Accord-
ing to the paper, the First
National Bank of North Bend
would then either reopen on
its own merits or be trans-
ferred into the control of one
of two banks in nearby Marsh-
field, the modern-day city of
Coos Bay. But still, no official
date of reopening was avail-
able. By this point, citizens of
North Bend had gone 51 days
without access to their bank
accounts.
“The city had to scram-
ble,” said retired North Bend
High School teacher and Coos
History Museum historian
Steve Greif. “It had to pay its
employees. It had firemen; it
had police officers and city
officials, a city manager; and
they had to do something.”
On March 10, 1933 — 59
days after the First National
Bank closed its doors— the
city announced a plan: North
Bend would issue its own cur-
rency. The city planned to print
$1,000 worth of its own scrip
to help stimulate the flow of
commerce.
This wasn’t an original
idea. All across the nation,
towns and cities were deal-
ing with a shortage of cash
and a run on banks. Commu-
nities, municipalities, banks
and community organizations
began issuing their own cur-
rency to stimulate commerce.
Most printed their money on
paper or even wood. A few
places got inventive.
In Morrow County, the
town of Heppner printed
money on strips of sheep-
skin. In California, the town
of Pismo Beach decided to
use clamshells as cash. North
Bend settled on wood. But not
just any wood. A rare type of
beautiful hardwood grown
locally made this small coastal
city’s money a cut above the
rest.
“North Bend did it in a
beautiful, artistic unique way,”
Greif said. “I know other
places made wooden money,
but I don’t think anybody did
it as beautiful as North Bend
and did it quite as well.”
Oregon myrtle
The Oregon myrtle (or Cal-
ifornia laurel, as it’s also com-
monly known) is an enigma.
It’s neither a laurel tree nor a
myrtle tree, despite its com-
mon names. This broadleaf
evergreen, known officially as
the Umbellularia californica,
grows only on a narrow strip
of inland land along the Pacific
Coast, ranging from Northern
California to Oregon’s south-
ern coast.
“The myrtle tree is amaz-
ingly distinctive,” Greif said.
“Once you see your first one
and someone identifies it, you
know you’re there. And then if
you go to touch it, you touch
the bark or the leaves itself —
the smell, you’ll never forget
it.”
The Oregon myrtle can take
on various shapes depending on
its surroundings. Left to grow
alone, say in the middle of the
end zone of a local high school
football field, the tree can reach
an impressive size, with a
large, thick trunk and a beau-
tiful bushy canopy. Full-grown
myrtles can reach heights of
150 feet. But they also take on
unusual shapes when growing
in groves, usually sporting mul-
tiple trunks that twist and turn
at various angles as they reach
for the sun.
Locals are known to cook
with the leaves, which are
described as similar to bay
leaves, only a bit spicier. But
Oregon myrtle’s real prize lies
under its bark: The wood is
what earned the tree its reputa-
tion as a coveted material.
Renowned for its beauty,
myrtlewood has been a favor-
ite of Oregon Coast wood-
workers for generations. It is
the highest priced of all West-
ern hardwoods, according to
Oregon State University for-
estry professor Ed Jenson, who
describes the tree in his book,
“Trees to Know in Oregon.”
Many commonly known
kinds of wood have a distin-
guishable look and features.
Think pine or oak or cherry.
Not myrtlewood. Its grain
presents in various patterns. Its
color ranges from the common
blonde to the rare dark, with
various hues of brown, gold
and red along the spectrum.
“It draws the nutrients up
from the soil, so whatever
soil type that it grows in, it
picks up the color variation
from the nutrients,” Pamela
Tonnemacher
explained.
Tonnemacher is the general
manager of the Oregon Myr-
tlewood Factory, just across
the McCullough Memorial
Bridge from North Bend.
Hers is one of the last
remaining myrtlewood shops
on this stretch of the Oregon
Coast. On any given day, cus-
tomers from across the region
and world stop in to peruse
the selection of myrtlewood
goods, ranging from kitchen
utensils to intricately detailed
pieces of furniture. While myr-
tlewood may not be as big
of a business as it once was,
shops like Tonnemacher’s help
locals maintain a connection
with this rare wood — a wood
North Bend turned to in its
time of desperation.
Coin design
Back in the spring of 1933,
North Bend got to work on
getting the myrtlewood money
into the hands of residents. The
city chose a design and began
work on issuing the first set
of coins. Pressed on 1/4 inch-
thick discs of myrtlewood in
various diameters, the city’s
new coins came in denomi-
nations of $10, $5, $2.50, $1
and 50 cents. Then-mayor
Edgar McDaniel, who also
served as editor of The Coos
Bay Harbor, oversaw the print-
ing of the coins on the paper’s
presses and their distribution
to the public.
It didn’t take long for the
myrtlewood money to catch on.
“The newspaper adver-
tised that it was good money,
listed all the stores and people
and the services in North Bend
that would take the money, so
it circulated a little bit,” Pierce
recounted. City employees
and contractors were paid
with myrtlewood money, and
they, in turn, spent it on goods
and services throughout the
community.
Demand for the coins was
high. Soon, the city decided
to issue a second pressing of
coins.
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Changes were made to the
coins for the second issue.
The city had learned valuable
lessons during the first round
of printing and distribution.
Most notably, the design on
the second issue was more
intricate, with details more
spread out across the full
face of the coin. They also
scrapped the $2.50 piece,
replacing it with a quarter.
“They did a much better
design, a much more attrac-
tive coin for the second coin,”
Pierce said. “One reason
being that they found when
they printed the first issue the
way it was designed the print-
ing was on more the center of
the coin, and when they tried
to print it on the big news-
paper press it would snap so
they lost a lot of coins that
way.”
The attention to design
proved especially important
for myrtlewood money’s fate.
While the coins proved
useful in keeping the econ-
omy moving, they also were
gaining a reputation far and
wide for their beauty. The rar-
ity of the wood made coun-
terfeiting the coins difficult,
and collectors appreciated the
attractiveness of the design.
The coins were so popular
that at one point the Klamath
Falls Chamber of Commerce
discussed the possibility of
working with the North Bend
Myrtlewood Factory to make
money for their city. Collec-
tors across the region clam-
ored for the money. The word
was out. The coins’ popular-
ity, however, ultimately led
to the currency falling out of
circulation.
“When December came
there really weren’t enough
people who wanted their
money that way,” Pierce
said of the coins. “They
were keeping it for souve-
nirs so the money has never
been declared finished, even
though it had a deadline time
printed on it. It is still as good
coinage today as it was back
in 1933.”
Ultimately, the coins’
beauty made it more valuable
as a collectible than a currency.
“That’s the beauty of myr-
tlewood is that no two coins
are alike,” Greif said. “And
that’s probably another reason
that collectors think of them as
being highly unique.”
And the beauty of the coins
is evident to this day.
Rare opportunity
On a rare opportunity to see
a coin outside of a collector’s
protective case, you’ll notice
a glossy sheen on each coin.
Back in 1933, after they were
pressed, they were covered in
a clear veneer. That veneer has
helped the coins maintain their
beauty nearly 90 years after
they were printed.
“Certainly, because they
are of substance, they’re not
like a piece of paper which
can fold, burn, get mutilated,
thrown away usually, they’ve
survived well,” said local his-
torian and former coin dealer
Dick Wagner.
Nowadays, you’re unlikely
to find someone actually will-
ing to use these coins as cash,
despite the fact that they
remain legal tender within the
city limits of North Bend. A $1
piece from the first issue sold
in 2016 for $75 — a 7,400 per-
cent premium over its declared
value.
“I would say at a minimum
the most common are worth
from $20 to $30 on the retail
market,” said Wagner. “And
the more expensive ones get
you into the hundreds, and
the rarest ones — the $10s —
can’t be priced because they’re
so rare that they just don’t
trade.”
Just how rare are we
talking? There is only one
known complete collection of
both issues of coins still in Ore-
gon. It belongs to Kristie Rob-
ertson Smith, who inherited her
father’s collection when he died
in 1969. Even Pierce, widely
regarded as the foremost expert
on the coins, doesn’t possess a
$10 from either issue.
It’s been 85 years since
these coins jostled in the pock-
ets of North Bend’s residents.
Eighty-five years since a small
town used a natural resource
— and a bit of ingenuity —
to weather a far-reaching cri-
sis. And while the coins are
no longer in circulation, their
existence challenges the say-
ing “money doesn’t grow on
trees.”
In North Bend, for a time,
money did just that.
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