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Back in the days before the US issued national banknotes (before the 1860s), banks would issue their own paper money. It didn't take much to set up a bank in a frontier town ("where the wildcats were"
, and unscrupulous banksters would take advantage of that by taking depositors' gold and silver (hard money) and issuing their own banknotes in return, which supposedly could be redeemed for hard money on demand. However, when the crooks got what they thought was enough in gold and silver, the "bank" folded, leaving depositors with paper dollars that had little if any value.
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