VISITING THE HIGGINS MUSEUM

 

On Monday, August 18, I set out on a road trip to Oklahoma City for the ANA World's Fair of Money. Mark Anderson was driving and Shawn Hewitt was another passenger. Our goal for the first day was the Higgins National Bank Note Museum in Okoboji. Iowa.

Waiting for us outside was the current curator, George Cuhaj. The museum was formed around the collection of William R. Higgins, Jr. (1913-1991) in 1978. According to George, John Hickman (1927-1995) was curator until 1994. He was followed by Merry Coleman for 1996-1999; Glenn McConnell for 2000-2005; and Avis Touville briefly in 2006. Larry Adams was hired in 2007. Larry did not drive and was killed as a passenger in a car accident in the fall of 2022. George Cuhaj was hired in the spring of 2023 and has served as curator since then.

The 9000 square foot building was built on a plan originally made for a nursing home. There is a central hall with six wings. The entrance area has two offices and two exhibit rooms with banking equipment, coin counting machines and safes. On the entry wall is a tribute to the donor, William R. Higgins, Jr.

On the sides are four wings with "state themes." Two are devoted to Iowa National Bank Notes, one devoted to Minnesota and one with notes from Nebraska and South Dakota. A smaller exhibit of Missouri notes is in the main hall.

 

The central hall has wall displays with a basic type collection representing 72 years of National Bank Notes (1863-1935). There is a red seal collection and representative notes for the other states and territories. Examples of bank charters are shown plus a wall from a teller's cage. There is a small spider press like those that would have printed banknotes. This was purchased to replace an earlier exhibit on loan from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Higgins also collected postcards of bank buildings. There are thousands of them available for view in the central hall.

The four state wings are more for the bank note collecting nerds who appreciate the notes issued by local banks and the signatures on them. With about 2600 notes in the collection, it is the largest collection of National Bank Notes on permanent display in the country.

The sixth wing has administrative areas not open to the public. They include a board room, library, utility closet and an apartment for the curator. There are also small guest rooms where we spent the night. During our night in the museum, none of us reported hearing the ghostly voices of old bank presidents.

The museum is open 11 to 5:30 on Tuesday through Sunday from Memorial Day through Labor Day. George stays in town for the summer but returns to Iola in the off season. The museum has sponsored paper money symposiums in even numbered years. The next paper money symposium will be on August 12-13, 2026, with five speakers.

The bank notes are displayed in locked Allstate cases that are bolted to the wall. When the museum closes after Labor Day, all the notes are taken out of the cases, put in envelopes and boxes. The boxes are secured at a local bank while the museum is closed. George says that with one helper, it takes 15 hours to take down the displays for storage.

After we had an introduction to the museum, George led us through a tour of Okoboji and nearby Spirit Lake. I was interested in sites of the 1857 Spirit Lake Massacre. In that spring, Santee Sioux, led by Inkpaduta, killed about 40 white settlers.

On our return trip from Oklahoma, we stayed at the museum again on Saturday, August 22. We had dinner at a restaurant overlooking Lake Okoboji. Mark is on the museum board and there was much discussion of future plans to modernize some of the exhibits and possibly expand the museum in the future.

 

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web