1 Cent - Safeway Stores, Incorporated El Paso, Texas

Safeway Stores issued paper scrip in denominations as low as one cent during the early-to-mid twentieth century to handle the chronic shortage of small-change coins in parts of the American Southwest and Mexico border region. El Paso's position as a border town complicated cash transactions further — Mexican centavos and U.S. cents circulated interchangeably in some shops, and scrip helped retailers stabilize their own tills without depending on federal coin supply. Private merchant scrip of this type was common enough during the Depression years that the federal government eventually moved to suppress it, though enforcement was uneven.