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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRevolutionary War currency on display at GI museum, The Eagle, 2026EE • Volume 152, Issue 161 • A Lee Enterprises, Incorporated Newspaper — Majority shareholder, David Hoffmann, Hoffmann Media Group • Copyright 2026 Follow us online: /bcseagle /theeagle /thebcseagle Bryan-College Station, Texas • theeagle.comWednesday, June 10, 2026 JOE SOUTHERN joe.southern@theeagle.com Brazos County commissioners voted 3-1 Tuesday to purchase a building and 6.8 acres of land next to the sheriff’s office and jail for $2.4 million. The purchase price is $1 million over its tax valuation and raised concerns from two citizens and Commissioner Fred Brown, who voted against the pur- chase. Located at 108 San Jacinto Lane, the property is at the intersection of Texas 21 and Sandy Point Road abutting the sheriff’s office and Brazos County Detention Center on the east. County Judge Duane Peters said the property is needed for future expansion of the jail. “I can’t help but think that the com- missioners have not looked at the tax assessment record on the property,” resident Cathie Viens said. “We’re proposing to buy it for $2.4 mil- lion. In 2024, the tax assessment was $980,000. It sold in spring of ’25 for $1.7 Why are we spending $2.4 million on this building? What are the extras that were added to that building for more than half a million dollars since the previous sale that we’re now will- ing to pay that extra money for? Why are we spending three times as much as the property sold for less than three years ago?” “At some point in the future there’s going to need to be an expansion of that jail,” Peters said in his reply. “We’ve expanded it once because of need, while I’ve been on the court, and some future court is going to have to expand that, I believe, as this county continues to grow.” Viens said she felt like the burden of a future need was being placed on tax- payers today. Peters said the county has tried and failed to purchase the prop- erty before. “I can tell you, we’ve actually looked at that property in the past, and it sold out from under us before we had the opportunity to purchase it,” he said. “So, in 10 years from now, when the need may really be there, it may not be available. I mean, if you don’t plan ahead for things, when the time comes, it may not be available at all.” Commissioner Bentley Nettles said Sheriff Wayne Dicky has spoken of a need for a building to park SWAT vehi- cles in. He said each time they’ve priced the cost of building a facility it has come in at $10 million. “I’m hoping that this facility there would allow them at least park some of their equipment out of the rain, extend lifetime of it. So, if you look at that perspective, it’s really kind of a bargain. I don’t know why we can’t build a building cheaper than $10 mil- lion in this county, but we don’t seem to be able to,” Nettles said. Commissioner Wanda Watson said JAKE WEESE jacob.weese@theeagle.com For the second summer in a row, the hustle and bustle surrounding A&M Consolidated and College Station high schools isn’t due to sporting events. The busy summer season is due to the athletic construction cour- tesy of College Station ISD’s 2024 bond proposition hard at work. “We got a lot going on, but it’s going to be really good when it’s all said and done,” said Josh Symank, College Station ISD’s assistant superintendent of operations. Last summer, the key areas of emphasis were turfing the base- ball and softball fields along with installing LED lighting. Lady Tiger Field also got a new press box, ticket booth, expanded seating and adjustments were made to the sidewalks and parking. Other projects completed either during the school year or in the summer were turfing the north D-Zones at each school, while Col- lege Station’s Cougar Stadium also received a new digital scoreboard. Pending rain, this summer is expected to be just as busy with Cougar Stadium, Tigerland Sta- dium and A&M Consolidated’s field house continuing to go under the knife. “Mother Nature has not been real kind to us this summer,” Symank said of the wet spring. “As great as the rain can be, when you’re work- ing on construction projects with hard deadlines that presents a very significant challenge and that’s one that we’re battling through every day. We’ve got people that are working six days a week, some of our crews are even coming in seven days a week, trying to help get this thing built cause we’ve got a very tight timeline.” Both football stadiums are increasing their capacity to 6,300. Previously, College Station could fit 4,573 fans, while Consol was at 5,238. Cougar Stadium also will get additional restrooms and a repaired press box due to water intrusion. Symank says that the bleachers already have been put in at Col- lege Station, while the bathroom expansion and press box are still being worked on. PHOTOS BY MEREDITH SEAVER, THE EAGLE Construction continues through the summer at College Station athletics facilities, including the Cougar Stadium press box. Citizens question property purchase BOND PROJECTS A WORK IN PROGRESS EDUCATION CSISD athletic facilities renovation goes on JOE SOUTHERN joe.southern@theeagle.com How does a country pay for a war when the country doesn’t have its own currency? That is one of the themes examined in a new exhibit of Revolutionary War-era cash now on display at the Museum of the American G.I. The Currency of Independence exhibit opened in April and will run through July at the College Station museum. “What we’re trying to do is take you through what was going on during that time to lead up to the Revolutionary War, and then we’re getting into each section of how the bills changed,” curator Melissa Bauman said. “How do you pay for it? How did they pay for a war? A lot of belief and trust and at the same time, the counter- feiting. There was a lot of counterfeiting.” The 28 bills on display date from 1757 to 1787. Some were printed by Benjamin Franklin. “He is pretty instrumental in all of this, from the anti-counterfeiting to the leaf printing to the ink in that era,” Bauman said. Leisha Mullins, executive director of the museum, said American colonies were prohibited by Britain from printing their own currency. “They weren’t supposed to be printing bills, because they were supposed to be using the British pound sterling,” she said. “They were not allowed to print their own money, but they had to have something because … the British coin left because if they had to pay their taxes. They had to pay that in that currency. So, if they didn’t have that currency, they couldn’t barter or trade.” Mullins said the first colonial bills were printed in 1690. Each colony printed its own. Bauman said that created a lot of problems and confusion. “One of the big things is, is that you get the currency in Pennsylvania. It doesn’t necessarily mean what it’s worth in Revolutionary War currency on display at GI museum MEREDITH SEAVER, THE EAGLE The Currency of Independence display at the Museum of the American G.I. will be on display through Sept. 7. Construction continues through the summer at A&M Consolidated’s athletics facilities. Brazos County paying $2.4M for new jail site Please see CONSTRUCTION, Page A2 Please see JAIL, Page A2 Please see CURRENCY, Page A2 A2 | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2026 The eagle Along with its own increased seating which is expected to be in at the end of the month, Tigerland Stadium is undergoing the most drastic changes of the two. It’ll also be getting a new press box, concessions and restrooms that will resemble College Station while a new digital scoreboard and ticket booths will be installed, with both entrances to undergo renovation. Consol’s field house also will expand. Symank added there are other building additions in the works that impact athletics as well. “So, for example at A&M Con- solidated High School with that new addition of the science wings and the SPED classrooms, we also have built a new auxiliary weight room that will be more sufficient for a 5A program like we currently serve here at Consolidated,” he said. “They’ve got a new film room and then with remodeling that we’re currently doing right now as we finish out the build- ing, trying to get out of there by August, they’re going to have their own cheer space. And from there, we’re also replacing all the bleachers in the competition gym and the freshman gym as well.” Symank added that the same can be said with the general con- struction at College Station. “We’re expanding off the four ends of the [school] building there so you’re adding a lot of square footage,” Symank said. “Under- neath the third gym, which is a big part of what CSHS needed, we’re adding locker room spaces that will help alleviate some of the overcrowding in the field house across the street and they’ll move out. So, baseball, softball, cross country and track will all move into the main building beneath the third gym. “Not wildly known but ever since the school opened, the var- sity gym sports have never had their locker rooms on the same level as the gyms just because what was originally built was too small, it didn’t serve their needs very well. So we’re currently remodeling all the locker room spaces on the gym level floor, so boys basketball will have a space up on the gym level floor, girls basketball will have their own space. And then with that third gym, we’re building a locker room space that will accommodate the volleyball team and we’re going to have an official dressing room for sports officials in that area as well, that’ll help alleviate some of the problems we’ve run into over there over the last few years.” It’s a lot to undertake and get done but Symank says the sub- stantial completion date for every- thing is the end of August. The first day high school football teams can start conditioning is Aug. 10. The first home game for A&M Consol- idated isn’t until Week 4 on Sept. 18, while College Station’s first home game is Sept. 4. “It may be that we’re button- ing up a few minor details at the end, but I feel comfortable that we’ll take care of business and get things done and have our teams back ready to roll for another football season and everything else that goes with it next year,” Symank said. “If Mother Nature continues to dump on us every couple of days and we continue to have these hard rain forecasts, it’s going to get more challenging but we’re not in bad shape yet. We’ve got until the end of August and we’ve got a pretty good plan, it’s an aggressive plan and I think we’ll be OK, we’ll execute it and we’ll get it done.” Construction continues through the summer at A&M Consolidated’s athletics facilities, including the Tigers’ field house. MEREDITH SEAVER, THE EAGLE she supports the purchase. “We’re trying to be proactive in terms of future needs, and we will have some offsetting expenses to kind of counter that,” she said. She said 10 years from now, even if the property is available, it will cost a lot more. “It seems like a lot of money, but we’re just trying to be proac- tive to make sure that we provide the county for what it needs, the citizens for what they need,” she said. Peter Michelena, the Republi- can candidate for Watson’s seat in November, questioned the trans- parency of the purchase, noting there were very few details in the attachment online to the agenda item. “I think that having transpar- ency when we’re making these decisions would be great,” he said. “One of the things I was curious about, too, is if we’ve done a cost benefit analysis on where this is going to be 10 years down the road? What’s it going to cost to upgrade this facility in 10 years? How much is that going to cost the taxpayers at that point?” Michelena said he is concerned that the county is paying too much for the property. “I understand what you’re say- ing regarding the fact that you’ve looked at this property before. You want to pick it up now before it gets back off the market, and that makes sense,” he said. “Ini- tially, I am concerned with the overvaluation of the property, since it’s valued at $1.4 [million] by our own Brazos CAD [central appraisal district], and we’re purchasing at $2.4 [million] so an extra million dollars on top of the maintenance requirements for the next 20 years before you even start developing. And what is that burden going to look like on people here in the area … is there a plan in place?” Commissioner Brown said he has asked for, but not received, a list of surplus property the county could sell to offset the purchase of this property. “It bothers me, as a former businessperson, that this prop- erty has a market value of $1.4 million. My question is, did we offer them $1.8 million? Did we offer them $2 million? All of a sudden we jumped up to $2.4 million on a property that seems overvalued to me,” he said. Peters explained that there is a competing offer for the property. “They’ve got an offer on table for that amount from somebody else,” he said. “So we can either match that and get it purchased, or we can let it go.” He said that in his time on the court the county has tried twice to buy the property, only to have it purchased by someone else. He said he agreed with Brown that the county should consider selling other properties to offset the cost. “We have kind of looked at what properties we may not need, what we may be able to sell, and cer- tainly I think we need to be doing that,” he said. “But this one, if we didn’t take action … it’s not going to be available.” Commissioner Chuck Konderla was absent from the meeting. 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PHOTOS BY JOE SOUTHERN, THE EAGLE Peter Michelena, the Republican candidate for Precinct 4 on the Brazos County Commissioners Court, addresses the court on Tuesday about the transparency of the process to purchase a property for a future expansion of the Brazos County jail. Pennsylvania is going to be the same worth in New Jersey. It might say the same, but it doesn’t mean New Jersey is going to accept the money that’s from Pennsylvania or give it the same worth,” she said. Bauman said the lack of a uni- form currency and the prolifer- ation of counterfeits made the economic system tenuous at best. “The British also learned how to counterfeit money so quickly. That was one of their weapons. They would just flood the market,” she said. “So then you couldn’t tell, is this a real one? What is this? So there’s a lot of trust and belief, like, is this the real currency, or is this the British?” The exhibit is shown in chronological order, allowing the observer to see how the currency evolved over the years. “There was no continuity,” Bauman said. “This colonist was using this; this one was using that one. There was no standard, and they had to come to a stan- dard. And that’s also what this is showing, starting from 1757 and the last bill that we have, the 1787, so it even shows you they’re still struggling. They’re still struggling with trying to find a standard, a continuity, how we’re all going to agree with what it’s worth.” The bills were printed on rag paper and had different color threads woven into them, along with bits of mica that sparkles when the light hits it a certain way. They were also watermarked. Bauman said printers used dif- ferent colored inks and some had markings on them indicating the printing plate used. “The way they each do their money, create and print their money, is going to be slightly dif- ferent,” she said. Mullins said the museum acquired the bills from the May- born Museum in Waco. “They were going through their collection and de-assessing things. They’re a natural history museum, and so they were de-as- sessing things in their collection that did not fit their mission,” she said. “These bills were one of those. We were fortunate enough because we’ve worked with them a number of times. So they gave them to us, and so they do per- manently belong to the museum’s collection.” She said the collection includes 50 bills from the Revolutionary War through World War II. Like the people who used the bills in colonial days, Bauman did extensive research on each one to make sure it wasn’t counterfeit. She relied heavily on the book “Early Paper Money of America,” fifth edition, by Eric P. Newman, along with special websites for collectors. Another discovery that Bauman made while doing research is that one of the printers was a woman. “Something that I learned, because all you saw was A.C. Green. You don’t see Anne Cath- erine Green. You see A.C. Green. And then when we started looking more into it, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a woman!’” she said. Mullins said that each of the bills on display has three layers of protection because they are so fragile after 250 years. “Here on display, each individ- ual bill is in one case, then that individual bill is placed in that larger currency case, and then in the frame it has UV protectant on that,” she said. Mullins said there are plans to display other currencies later, including money from the Civil War and the two World Wars. For more information about the museum and the exhibit, visit americangimuseum.org. 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