The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 25, June 20, 2004, Article 11

REAGAN BIRTHPLACE

  Last week we asked about a piece of numismatically-related
  Ronald Reagan trivia.  The 40th President was born in 1911
  in an apartment above a bank in Tampico, IL.  We were
  curious about the name of the bank and whether it issued
  currency,

  An anonymous currency collector writes: "As I recall, Ronald
  Reagan was born above The First National Bank of Tampico,
  Illinois.  This bank did issue national bank notes.  For further
  information, please refer to any of the many national bank note
  catalogs (Van Belkum, Ramsey & Polito, Kelly, Hickman &
  Oakes, Liddel & Litt, etc.).  Among national bank note
  enthusiasts, Reagan's birthplace is very old news, particularly
  since President Reagan was a close personal friend of Bill
  Higgins.  Bill was the founder of the Higgins Museum in Lake
  Okoboji, Iowa, the country's only museum dedicated to
  national bank notes."

  Bill Burd writes: "I would imagine you received many responses
  to your question regarding Reagan's birthplace. I am sending
  you the little I know anyway.  The Tampico Bank was
  established in 1882.  In August of 1908 it was chartered as a
  National Bank and changed it's name to First National Bank
  of Tampico.  It issued large size 1902 Date Backs and also
  Plain Backs.  Also, it issued small size currency dated 1929.
  It was liquidated in December 1931."

  Jess Gaylor provided a link to an article about the bank's
  history, noting that when Ronald W. Reagan's family moved
  in in 1906,  "a bakery or restaurant occupied the building below
  the apartment.  Tampico National Bank came into existence in
  1919 and was privately owned."

  The site notes: "... the First National Bank of Tampico ...
  opened for business on October 1, 1908. Business was first
  conducted in the old Burden building, on the west side of
  Main Street, which has since been torn down, and later moved
  to the building on the east side of Main Street which houses
  the Village Administration offices at present."

www.tampicohistoricalsociety.citymax.com

  [Reagan was born in 1911.   It's unclear from this article whether
  there was a bank in the same building at the time Reagan was
  born.  And further documentation or discussion of this issue is
  invited.

  Only history will tell if any leader is worthy of honoring on our
  money, and there are many examples of the folly of honoring
  living or recently-deceased persons on coins and currency.  I
  laughed when I first heard of the movement to honor Reagan,
  who was still alive at the time.  He may be gone now, but it is
  still much too early to consider putting his portrait on money.
  -Editor]

  Illustrating the divisions that surround Reagan's legacy is the
  following note from Richard Doty, who writes:

  "IF handing the country more completely to the rich
   IF ignoring AIDS while thousands died
   IF winning the Cold War by proving that we were capable
        of going deeper into debt than were our adversaries
  IF breaking one union and weakening the rest;

  IF all of these were accomplishments
  and IF you deem their author worthy of remembrance on
  our money - then by all means put him on it.
  But I won't use it."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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