Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 10, 2022
The Fort Vancouver Centennial half dollar is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1925 in honor of the founding of Fort Vancouver in present-day Vancouver, Washington. The obverse of the commemorative coin (pictured) depicts John McLoughlin, who built the fort for the Hudson's Bay Company in 1825. The reverse shows an armed frontiersman standing in front of the fort. Representative Albert Johnson of Washington state was able to get Congress to authorize a coin for Fort Vancouver's centennial celebrations, and President Calvin Coolidge signed the authorizing act on February 24, 1925. Laura Gardin Fraser was engaged to design the coin on the recommendation of the United States Commission of Fine Arts. The coins were struck at the San Francisco Mint, and then were flown to Washington state by airplane as a publicity stunt. They sold badly, and are valuable today since few of the coins survive. (Full article...)