5 Cents Auburn; DeWitt General Hospital

DeWitt General Hospital in Auburn, California operated as a large Army general hospital during and immediately after World War II, and like many military installations of the period it issued its own scrip to facilitate on-base commerce — canteen purchases, haircuts, small transactions that the Army preferred to keep off the civilian economy. This note is part of that closed-currency system, redeemable only within the installation and worthless the moment the hospital deactivated.

DeWitt closed in 1946 as the demobilization swept through the Western Defense Command's medical infrastructure. Scrip from hospitals that shut down abruptly was rarely redeemed in full, which accounts for occasional survivors in uncirculated condition.