1 Cent - Arapahoe Stores, Inc. #2 Pueblo, Colorado

Arapahoe Stores operated as a consumer cooperative in Pueblo, Colorado — a region with a strong labor and cooperative movement tied to the steel and mining industries that dominated southern Colorado through much of the twentieth century. Store-issued scrip like this 1-cent note functioned as fractional change currency, a practical workaround when coin shortages made small-denomination transactions cumbersome at the register. The "#2" designation confirms this was issued by a specific branch, suggesting the cooperative ran multiple locations.

Colorado cooperative scrip of this type rarely entered formal banking records, which makes provenance and dating difficult. Survival is almost entirely a matter of luck.