3 Dollars State of Missouri

Missouri's decision to issue its own state currency in 1862 was a direct consequence of the Civil War fracturing normal banking operations across the border states. The state government, nominally under Union control but contested militarily by Confederate forces and pro-secessionist guerrillas throughout that year, needed circulating money quickly. The American Bank Note Company had the capacity and the security infrastructure to deliver it.

The watermarked paper was ABNCo's standard safeguard against counterfeiting — Missouri's notes were being copied almost immediately after issue, a problem endemic to state and local paper across the wartime Midwest.