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National Bank Notes > North Dakota

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Wilton, First NB, 11712
Fr. 607 $5 1902PB
Grade: PMG Ch. EF 45    

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The only national bank in Wilton was chartered on April 28, 1920. The bank issued only 3,782 sheets of Blue Seals and there are seven large notes reported. As surprising as that is, this note is lovely and has blue pen signatures of T.H. Steffen, Vice President and A.M. Dahl, Cashier. This is as nice as you will find. Wilton is a city in McLean and Burleigh Counties and is part of the Bismarck metro area. The population was 711 at the 2010 census. In 1898, General W.D. Washburn, a former U.S. Senator and surveyor-General from Minnesota as well as a principal owner of the Washburn-Crosby Flour Mills, purchased 113,000 acres of Northern Pacific grant lands for the purpose of developing its resources and promoting settlement. In May 1899, Washburn selected a town site with four blocks in Burleigh County and eleven in McLean County and named it Wilton; for a town in his home state of Maine. In its early days, Wilton sat on the rim of one of the largest lignite deposits in the world. In order to develop area coal mines, he began immediately to organize the Bismarck, Washburn and Ft. Buford Railroad Co. (later the Bismarck, Washburn and Great Falls Railroad Co.) which was completed in 1900. (In 1904 the railroad was sold to the Soo Line.) In 1901 the mine, located one mile east of town, began full operation. By 1907 it was the largest underground lignite mine in the world. On Jan. 10, 1900, a post office was established with Mr. Eastman as the first postmaster. The village incorporated in 1902 and it became a city in 1912. For many years the city was a coal mining center, reaching a peak population of 1,001 in 1930.

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