Historic Hood River

Notes

Grace’s pick for today’s artifact is this unusual printing plate with a fun story.  During the Great Depression local tire magnate Hal Nesbit came up with the idea of printing “rubber checks” for his business.  This plate was for the reverse, which said “Aw!  T’Hell with the Depression”.

We’ve had quite a few posts which mention Hal Nesbit or his tire business/ garage.  I believe this was the Tire Shop on this business card.

This 1972 newspaper account tells the story of the rubber checks:

Hal Nesbit, who might look nostalgically on days gone by in Hood River, will have even more reason to reminisce this month about one particular time during the depression years

On March 15, storyteller Nelson Olmsted, will tell a tale how Nesbit used to pass “rubber checks” during the  Depression without so much as a twinge of conscience.

You see Nesbit had a tire business and he made the rubber checks– which were as good as gold!

The account, to be aired during a Pacific Powerland presentation March 15, tells the true story of how Nesbit faced the shortage of currency that developed during the early 1930’s.

At those times in Hood River there was every kind of cash substitute as currency continued to become more scarce.  Wooden nickels and sheepskin “greenbacks” were not uncommon.

So Nesbit came up with the idea of making rubber checks with his vulcanizing equipment, and he suggested it to the Chamber of Commerce Board one night, thinking it might be a good idea for the city.  “They laughed at me,” says the Nesbit narrative.

He went ahead on his own and made a mold from a piece of aluminum fender.

“One side of the check said ‘Good for one dollar in trade at Hal’s Tire Service’, while embossed on the other side were the words ‘Aw!  T’Hell with the Depression'”

At first there was a little hesitancy about accepting the real rubber checks.  But Nesbit’s assurances, and his faithful redemption of his private currency, soon made the unique checks popular items. He found, “that there were many people who would not only accept the rubber checks in place of a dollar bill, but even went out of there way to come by his place to get some.”
He made about 400 of the rubber checks, which took about an hour to manufacture in the home-made mold.

As the narrative says, each would be worth “at least four dollars now, what with inflation and all.”

The fuller story of Nesbit’s own depression story will make interesting listening when air-time arrives for Pacific Powerland at 5:35 p.m. March 15.

Unfortunately we don’t seem to have a rubber check in our collection, but another source claims in the 1970s one of these checks was sent to the Smithsonian and is incorporated in their collection.  I don’t see a reference to it in their online index, but that index isn’t exhaustive.

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