Photo Feature By Al Harris & Jesse Wood

What Tuition Payments Used To Look Like....

Mr. Jesse N. Wood of Jacksonville, retired executive vice president of the former First National Bank of Jacksonville, allowed us to make archival photos of currency no longer in circulation but that was common during the formative years of the present-day Jacksonville State University and Calhoun County. The top photo shows a five-dollar bill issued during a time when the local banks themselves issued currency (note that it carries the inscription "The First National Bank of Jacksonville Alabama"). Mr. Wood remembers that the large sheets of bills delivered to the bank had to be signed and cut with extra-large scissors. The second and third images below show the front and back of a ten-dollar bill back when the currency was about a third larger in size than today's money. The next photo shows an old silver certificate, while the following two images show an Alabama Confederate hundred-dollar bill and a Confederate States of America twenty-dollar bill (shown strictly for historical purposes). And, finally, at bottom is a five-hundred-dollar bill, which was among the Treasury's former series of high-dollar bills used mostly among banking institutions, the Federal Reserve, and the government. Those bills included the $10,000 note (Salmon P. Chase's portrait was on the front, which was unusual becase Chase was not a U.S. President); the $5,000 note (Madison); and the $1,000 note (Cleveland). According to the U.S. Treasury, the present denominations of currency in production are $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100. More information about the history of U.S. money can be found at the Treasury website.

Photo Feature Archives

 

All photos copyrighted by the photographer. Please contact Al Harris for permission for commercial use. Share your best photos with the JSU community online by sending them to alharris@jsu.edu.

---

Submit items for news releases by using the request form at http://www.jsu.edu/news/requestform.html.