The light in the museum was poor for photographs, but I managed to get a few items here - part of a barbed wire collection, railroad lanterns, and currency bags.
The railroad line, operating from 1878 until 1916, had only one passenger car and a freight car. For $1.00 a ton, freight was loaded anywhere on the line, and passenger tickets were also $1.00. Stops were made whenever necessary. Farmers flagged down the train anywhere along the line and freight was dropped off the same way. Cows often held up the entire schedule while the conductor chased them out of the way.
Tenino made news all over the world during the Depression when it made "wooden money". The scheme grew out of a Tenino Chamber of Commerce plan to issue emergency scrip to relieve the money shortage caused by the failure of the local bank. The original scrip was on paper and given to bank depositors in exchange for assignment to the Chamber of up to 25% of the depositor's bank account balance.
Shortley afterward, the scrip was printed on "slicewood" of spruce and cedar. It immediately became famous as the original wooden money. Eight issues were printed between 1932 and 1933, with a total of $10,308 of the wooden currency put into circulation. It became a collector's item, and only $40 was ever redeemed by the Chamber of Commerce.
