3 Dollars City of Omaha

Omaha was barely five years old when this note was issued — the city had been founded as a speculative townsite in 1854, the same year Nebraska Territory was organized under the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Municipal scrip of this kind was a symptom of the chronic coin shortage on the frontier, where eastern banks were distant and hard currency rarely stayed put long enough to do commerce any good.

Wellstood, Hay and Whiting were a capable New York security printing firm of the period, later absorbed into the American Bank Note Company in the 1858 consolidation. The note predates that merger by roughly a year.