25 Cents Pryor PoW Canteen

Pryor, Oklahoma hosted Camp Pryor, a branch camp of the McAlester POW complex, holding primarily German prisoners put to work in local agriculture and light industry. Canteen currency of this type was mandated by the Geneva Convention, which required that prisoners be compensated for labor and allowed to purchase goods — U.S. Army policy implemented this through camp-specific scrip deliberately made non-negotiable outside the wire, preventing any economic utility if a prisoner escaped.

The orange paper is characteristic of the denomination tier used across several Oklahoma branch camps, a color-coding system that varied by facility rather than any War Department standard.