Editorial note — Chapter V · ACROSS THE WATERS[48]
Reading edition
Another instance of changed standards in the West may be seen in the revolution as to petty prices. Up to twenty years ago, in most Rocky Mountain communities, the quarter-dollar was the smallest coin in circulation. With the railroads came the dime, the nickel, and at last the penny; but they came to a West that was no more.
A Montana periodical thus comments on these matters as they appeared at the time when the railroad reached Miles City:
“The advent of the Northern Pacific Railroad, in November, 1881, brought about a complete change in the methods and manners of the people. The railroad brought the community at once in touch with the more concise and narrower life of ‘the States’; the ‘nickel’ displaced the ‘quarter’ as the smallest coin in use, and prices shrunk accordingly. . . . This proposed innovation was hotly contested for a while by the adherents of the ‘two-bit’ theory, resulting finally in a compromise that established ‘two-for-a-quarter’ as the going rate. It would be hard to describe the feeling of dejection that overwhelmed the old-timers when this conclusion was reached. It was accepted by them as a pronounced and evident sign of decadence.”