PMG Choice Uncirculated 64, Proof
This bank was organized as a free bank around 1857 and, like 89 other Illinois free banks, failed in 1861 as southern state bond prices collapsed with the onset of the Civil War. These bonds had served as the underlying security for many banks’ circulation. The $5 design features a vignette of a Native American family traveling by canoe flanked by a smaller vignette of two Native American warriors gazing at the approaching encroachment of “Civilization” in the form of a distant town at left and the state auditor die at right.